#q.u.b.e.

[sablegear0]

Well after all these years I finally re-played and beat Q.U.B.E. (Director's cut, which I think I got for free for owning the base game? Idk it was literally over a decade ago that it came out.)

And uh...

I have some thoughts and maybe some minor spoilers under the cut. The gist of it I finally beat it after getting hung up on a puzzle ages ago and quitting. According to the achievements the one I quit on was "The hardest puzzle in the game". That one plus another later one were the only two I need a guide for though so I can proudly say I did it like 98% legit. Probably will not go back for the time-attack challenges, I don't want the achievements that bad.

Tl;dr- I enjoyed it. I found the puzzles challenging, the mechanics were pretty reliable except for a couple weird clipping issues, and the aesthetic is pretty neat. The game part of the game was very good, and fwiw the voice actors did a fantastic job. The story bits left me unenthused but there's nothing really wrong with them.

Someone on the Steam Community page posted a "We have Portal at home" meme. And... Yeah it does kind of feel like that, but only with respect to the story. Which - I feel weird saying this but- I honestly don't think needed to exist? Idk, coming hot on the heels of Portal it's definitely of an era of the "something spooky is going on behind the puzzles" mini-genre. I think just solving puzzles in a vacuum could have been compelling enough, QUBE's mechanics and design are pretty dang good, I would have played it just for the satisfaction of progressing.

I have a vague inkling the story bits were tacked on for the DC version? I don't remember having someone in my ear via radio the first time I played it, but granted it WAS a long time ago. The middle twist to twist-back ending kinda... Idk. Probably would have been more effective in its time. As it is it just left me kind of skeptical and feeling sorry for one of my narrators. Well, both of them actually. Being alone in space does something to you, it seems.

[beaubirds]

Am I in space or am I underground? No worries, it's more Q.U.B.E.s!!! https://www.twitch.tv/beaubirds

[beaubirds]

Boxes really are my thing huh https://www.twitch.tv/beaubirds

[gamesinorbit]

Q.U.B.E. 2 — fun cubed

Q.U.B.E. 2 is a game that introduces a significant portion of the audience to the puzzle genre. It innovates and improves upon its predecessor, providing several hours of gameplay, but it's quite easy and can become monotonous.

Developed by Toxic Games and published by Trapped Nerve Games, Q.U.B.E. 2 bears a strong resemblance to Valve’s Portal series. The name stands for “Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion,” and it was released on March 13 for PS4, Xbox One — by the way, I tested it after getting it for free on Xbox Live Gold in the month I’m writing this review, December 2018 — and PC. Q.U.B.E. 2 is a puzzle game…

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[savingcontent]

Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary is a rebuild version of the classic first-person puzzler, coming to PC and Xbox on September 14th

Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary is a rebuild version of the classic first-person puzzler, coming to PC and Xbox on September 14th

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[tinysamm]

While the player has full 3D movement available to them in Q.U.B.E., the game cleverly limits the points where the actual environment altering “cubes” can be, ensuring that no matter what, they always start and end position in a core cube position. This is even presented through the diagonally placed cubes, the diagonal surface of which covers a whole cube of space on its own as well. 

[gaming-pasq]

Q.U.B.E: Director's Cut

(first choice out of 10 random rolls)

One more from the Humble Freedom Bundle, Q.U.B.E. (Steam store link) was one of the games I was most interested in to get out of that bundle.

It is a puzzle game, heavily influenced by the Portal games. They’re not even hiding that, when you click things you can not interact with, you will get either a blue or an orange dot depending on the mouse button you click with. But in stead of portals, you can interact with... can you guess it? That’s right! Cubes.

The puzzles are interesting. Depending on the colours of the cubes, different things can be done, and it gets more challenging the further on.

Fin or Bin?

Sadly, the puzzles are really the only good thing about this game. I already got annoyed from the start because it has no option for subtitles while it tries to implement a story as why you are in this place full of cubes. The story is also completely bullshit and annoying, with the copy-paste story of not knowing what’s going on and having two sides trying to tell you not to trust the other side. You don’t get actual options to follow one or the other, so it’s completely pointless to have this story. Playing it on mute is more enjoyable.

Also, one section has dark rooms with bright white lights and I hated that part. My eyes hurt again just thinking about it.

And yet I finished this game. The puzzles were good enough to keep me going, and it was super short. Including the “secret rooms” it took me less than 3 hours gameplay and 1/3 of that was probably walking from one section to another while listening to the voices on the radio telling me useless stuff.

I am not gonna 100% it. All the achievements I still need are from bonus levels that all are basically needing speedruns of those levels and I cannot be bothered with that. On top of that, there are a few completely pointless grinding achievements that basically mean you have to play those optional levels over and over and over again 500 times for 10+ hours. Fuck that. Devs including achievements like that are assholes.

I am not buying the sequel for sure. Reviews say the puzzles are far from as good, and that’s the only thing that would want me to bother with the game. I’ll play it if I get it in a bundle or so but I don’t think the games are worth my money.

[pirategate-blog]

Q.U.B.E. 2

https://pirategate.com/q-u-b-e-2-full-game-free-download-cracked/