Review – Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut.

Title: Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut
Platform: PC/Mac/PS3/PS4 (Reviewed on)/Xbox One
Developer: Toxic Games
Publisher: Toxic Games
Release date: Out Now!
Family Friendly?: Click here

First… please forgive the slightly outdated launch trailer.

Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut is a puzzle game that focuses heavily on simplicity from both a puzzle and cosmetic perspective.

It looks dull, grainy and lives up to the name with a game world primarily build from cubes. Note that for the purposes of the review, I’ll refer to the blocks as cubes rather than ‘QUBES’ as the game’s title might suggest.

Whilst I said dull and grainy, occasional bouts of colour make an appearance in what can be described as ‘action cubes’. These cubes can essentially be manipulated with your character’s gauntlets with each colour having a specific action.

Red cubes can be extended to form platforms, blue cubes can be used as springs, yellow can be used as stairs, green cubes are generic blocks and purple ones can be used to operate the walls/floors by rotating, giving you a chance to move other cubes into a stronger position to complete the puzzles.

Occasionally, new aspects creep in which quickly seemed to refresh the concept of the game such as spheres that you need to guide through mazes, mines that can break down walls when a puzzle is completed, power cables to charge powered down cubes and magnets to force cubes into a new position in the direction of the magnet.

It sounds simple right?

Well… it is.

Q.U.B.E seemingly tries to come across as harder than it actually is when really, there isn’t much thought required to progress. There is a natural progression of simple puzzles to slightly harder as the game progresses but I never really felt like I was left with a proper brain teaser.

A little bit of common sense seen me coast through the game, with it taking only a few hours to finish.

Put it this way – I was left a little deflated when out of the blue, a trophy popped up saying that I had completed the hardest puzzle in the game in just a matter of minutes. Common sense or dumb luck – I felt a little cheated that the hardest puzzle didn’t have much to offer.

I will point out that I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the hidden puzzles which actually proved to be quite enjoyable. Some actually came across more challenging than the ‘hardest’ puzzle in the game because it required an understanding of physics and forced me to pre-plan my moves.

I didn’t mention that there was a storyline with the game. After all, completing a series of puzzles in a giant cube environment would suggest that a story is required! Incentive to progress or a reason behind your character’s predicament at the very least, right?

Wrong. Honestly, I’d rather there wasn’t a story and it was just a puzzle game redundant of any form of storytelling.

Why? The story was weak.

Perhaps I’m being too critical because I’ve recently absorbed myself in The Talos Principle which had a philosophical, cleverly written story but it truly was an empty experience. Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut lacked the fun of Portal’s epic hilarity as well so if I was to compare against the two – the story wasn’t ‘fun’ and it wasn’t ‘serious’… it was just somewhere in between that is tough to pinpoint or even describe.

I don’t feel like I’m giving away some spoilers but the premise is – you wake up alone, a woman starts speaking to you over the communications unit advising that mission control need you to get through the cube, your wife misses you, some stranger hacks the line, tells you it is a lie, you complete the game, the stranger was the liar and the President thanks you for saving humankind.

What’s worse is that the story happens to be told between puzzle zones or sectors – forcing you to listen to the hollow script by making you suffer extremely long elevator rides and long corridors that occasionally wind or abstractly twist and pulsate.

There was little to no backstory – little effort put into it and then it was all over. I wasn’t in any way invested and probably missed some key plot elements as a result but still feel like I got the most out of the game. Hence why I innocuously feel as though it should have been removed completely. The game, for me, would have worked without it.

In my eyes… the developers should have stuck with their strengths and created some more puzzles. If Q.U.B.E. just focussed on its more enjoyable, fun aspects at greater length, it would have felt even better.

A simple case of utilising the corridors and elevator shafts in various puzzle like schemes – or even skipping them altogether with teleporters and moving into a new sector would have provided more longevity instead of a wooden script.

I felt like my time was spent 60% on puzzles, 30% on elevators, 9% in corridors and 1% wishing I could fast forward to the next puzzle without having to listen. Genuinely. What’s worse is my game actually crashed during one of them so I was forced to listen all over again…

Nevertheless… please don’t let my harsher comments on the story put you off though – I did enjoy playing the game. I always enjoy a puzzle game, irrespective of the overall difficulty. That alone does merit a play-through.

The game world might be simple but it is very clever and well designed. After all, the inclusion of springs and warping walls/floors (purple cubes) does require building and then testing with a fine toothed comb until it is perfect. That alone makes me appreciate why the story might be quite weak because getting the puzzles perfect would have been no small feat.

I don’t really have much more to add other than it is a simple game and a good way to kill a few hours. For less than £10, the game is definitely worth a go.

Just don’t expect to be too heavily challenged in the process. If you want something simple – perfect. If you want sheer difficulty, look elsewhere.

Pros

• Well designed.
• Simple to grasp. No explanation required.
• Reasonable puzzles with varying difficulty – hidden puzzles were actually quite good.

Cons

• Very weak story.
• Puzzle enthusiasts might be left unfulfilled.
• Much shorter than I would have hoped.

Family Focus

No reason why not!

A code for the game was kindly supplied by the publisher for the purpose of creating this review.