Q.U.B.E Director’s Cut Review

Q.U.B.E Directors Cut is another well known indie game to be joining the Wii U Eshop. It has been well received previously and has been quite hyped for it’s Wii U release, being part of the Wii U Nindies at home program at this year’s E3. It’s a first person puzzle game, which is very unique for the Eshop, but the question is, is it actually any good?

This is a game surrounded in mystery, you wake up in a room made of white blocks, as you move, they move around you, soon a narrative picks up and you are lead to believe you are on a space ship of some sort on a crash course with planet earth! A lady cosmonaut exposes you to this narrative as you explore your surroundings. You are convinced you of the fact that you are in the scenario with crisp, clear graphics and sound. This is all very nice and works well with the storyline and gameplay. It has an interesting hook to the narrative and builds up to an interesting story arc with some very interesting twists and turns!

The gameplay is very unique, but as described it is quite simple too, it is a 3D first person puzzle game. You think of any first person game and you get an idea of how it controls, you cross that with the idea that your character have technical gloves that do certain things. For example you can use the gloves you are wearing to push a blue block, this may act as a launch pad, once you press it, it is primed, once you walk onto it you are launched and you use that to get higher up. Another example you do is press a line of yellow blocks and these raise up in ascending order to which one you pressed, you press it in a certain position to get up to the next level, this can be horizontal or vertical.

You mix those together, or think of other things, you see the possibilities of the puzzles, although there is a lot variety of what there is to be solved can get a bit samey sometimes. At the same point you can enter a room and be stupefied on what to do, there is a good sense of self satisfaction to be had when you complete a puzzle well too!

The further you go the more complex the puzzles get too, the environment and circumstances change as well, the story expounds more mystery and you find yourself in a gripping experience! This is a great thing, because the ending is worth the work for sure!

One of the main comparisons you hear when talking about this game is to the Portal games, you solve puzzles to get to the next room, you have a lady character speaking to you, and there are easy comparisons to make for sure. I have to say, I have only played Portal a little, but I feel this game has carved an identity of it’s own, the puzzles are unique as described and has nothing to do with the Portal games.

The only thing for me to fault isn’t really fair on the game, I just don’t much like 3D first person games where jumping and accuracy in jumping is key and that are the case with this one. It can be said that it’s not the longest to play, about four hours, but I would argue with the extra time trials and storyline added, it’s not worth a moan really; there is a lot to look into for me in general!

There is a decent amount of replay ability with that, certainly with the new storyline and dialogue from award winning writing from Rob Yescombe and new sound track, there is even reasons for veterans to return to the game!

To me there is no doubt that Q.U.B.E Directors Cut is a very decent Eshop offering. If you are looking for a unique puzzler with an interesting storyline and great presentation I would say you go a lot worse than this one for your money, while it won’t be my favourite game ever it still is worth a look for fans of the genre!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo Wii U code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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