Q.U.B.E. Review (PC)

Q.U.B.E. | Toxic Games | Desura/Steam/GamersGate | £11.99 | Released: 16/12/2011

Wake up! Collapsed on the floor with a pair of mechanical gloves on your hands, you slowly rise and find yourself in a very plain, white room. Welcome to the world of Q.U.B.E. (Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion)!

The above is as much story and plot as you’re going to get in this first person puzzler from Toxic Games, but that’s part of the game’s charm. Much like Valve’s Portal, you move from room to room solving puzzles to do so. However, that’s where the comparisons to Portal end. The gloves on your hand gives you the ability to pull out, or extrude, coloured blocks from the wall, with each colour acting slightly differently to the last. Some puzzles require you to scale a room to the exit; others require you to use magnets in order to move blocks; Spheres, dark rooms and light beams – Q.U.B.E. has a variety of different puzzles throughout the game.

Difficulty is often a hard thing to get right in a puzzle game and, for the most part, that aspect has been hit well. However, whilst there is definitely a rise in difficulty from start to end, some veterans to puzzle games may find Q.U.B.E. to be fairly easy to their tastes, with the odd exception here and there.

The soundtrack for Q.U.B.E. fits the game well – you don’t miss it, but it never feels in the way or tacked on, which is essential with a puzzler, as I’m sure you all know.

As for game modes… Well, there’s just the one: Single Player. Skill depending, your first play through would most likely average at around 3.5-6 hours which some may find to be fairly short. However, with its successful launch, Toxic Games are already talking about the possibility of added content and gamemodes.

While some may find Q.U.B.E. to be short or a bit too easy, if you have some money lying around and you want a new puzzle game to sink your teeth into, there’s bound to be something you’ll like about Q.U.B.E.!