QUBE has been called a lot of things, but the one that reigned over the others was "QUBE is Portal with cubes". I mean, Portal was well, Portal with cubes, but still QUBE draws a lot of inspiration from it and that's a great thing.
Much like Portal, in QUBE you wake up in a white room with a voice speaking to you telling stuff and lo and behold, you don't remember a damn thing. Anyhow as you traverse through the level, you discover that you have some special gloves that allow you to "control" cubes around you, different colored cubes allow you to do different tasks. This is what you'll do well, for the entirety of the game, control the cubes to solve the puzzles and progress through this what might or might not be an alien craft.
See, the story was interesting and the twist at the end was very well executed. Throughout the game, you hear these two voices talking to you, one of a man and one of a woman. What they say to you about you and about the QUBE is extremely well written and will definitely surprise you in the end... it surprised me. But while the part of story about who you are and why you might be inside the QUBE was intriguing although painted in broad strokes, why do you have to go through these puzzles and solve them was nowhere to be found. Now, maybe I missed or totally forgot about a conversation with one of the two voices, but I wish there were more insight on what was really going on, who made the QUBE and why was I inside it?
Anyhow the gameplay was well, great. Sure if you have played first-person physics based games in the past, many of the gameplay elements would feel very familiar, but QUBE offered some new and very interesting ones. So for example, there were puzzles where you have to shift or move, call it what you want, an entire section of the "room" so the other elements would be in the right spot for you to complete the puzzle. Or there were times when the entire level would be totally dark and you could see only one cube or element at the time, so you had to be smart and quick in setting up the elements in a Rube Goldberg fashion to progress through.
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That's what is great about QUBE, trying to set up everything right, failing a couple of times, to just get it right in the end it's quite the satisfaction. Of course I wish that the puzzles had more than one right way to solve, but hey QUBE [Dsquared] is coming, right?
As for the presentation, I really like the minimalist style from the menus to the art style. As you might have guessed it, everything is made out of cubes and that "symmetry" or "harmony" is a pleasant sight for the eye. Sure the overall look could have been better, as it is in every case, with better lighting, shadows, animations, photorealist cubes etc. but what's in QUBE just works perfectly with the tone the game goes for. It runs great, no drops in frames, no texture pop-in or glitches, none, apart from three consecutive crashes I had in the first 15 minutes of playing. But after that, it was all smooth sailing and thanks to the PS4 ability to Suspend & Resume, it felt like one continuous play.
So, should you get QUBE? Well, if you love challenging puzzle games, then QUBE is perfect for you. It's available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One and it is the same experience on all of them. The main "campaign" is short, but just long enough to not overstay it's welcome and once you beat that, you can go back to find the secret areas with some pretty difficult puzzles or try the "Time Trial" mode. It is a neat package, with enough to keep you entertained for a day or two. But hey, who am I to tell you where to spend your money on? The QUBE demands it, all hail the QUBE!
