Review: Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut

Posted by Collin on July 27th, 2015 | 0 Comments | Tags: Grip Games , Q.U.B.E. Director's Cut , Toxic Games

It’s hard to talk about Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut without talking about Portal. It’s a first person puzzle game with white, test chamber-like rooms and a story that keeps you in the dark, with the game not revealing who you are, nor who you can trust. Manipulating colored blocks to traverse to each new area is goal of the game. The experience of Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut is short and somewhat easy, but it’s an experience worth taking if you enjoy puzzle games and an interesting story.

Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut opens with your character waking up after an incident with a pair of gloves now attached to your hands. These gloves can manipulate certain blocks in the world to progress to the next puzzle. Shortly after finding your way around, a voice over a radio tells you the situation. You are on a space ship that is rocketing toward Earth, and the only way to stop it is to get to the center of the ship and destroy it. As you progress through each of the seven sectors the game has to offer, the story will become clearer, and at the same time, the suspense increases. The story had me interested toward the end and I wanted to get through each puzzle to see how the story would conclude. It took me just under four hours to complete the game, including some of the optional side puzzles.

Gameplay has you manipulating colored blocks to solve each puzzle. Red blocks can be extended one block at a time and can be used as platforms. Yellow blocks are laid out in a set of three, with each block extending to a different length, depending on where you activate the block. There are several other colored blocks with certain functions that can lead to some really thought-provoking and challenging puzzles. The first five sectors really aren’t that challenging however. It is pretty straight forward with few puzzles actually offering challenge. Toward the end the difficulty does ramp up, when several of the mechanics are brought together. An “Against the Clock” mode is included in the Director’s Cut, which tasks you with running through new puzzles as quick as possible. The puzzles in the “Against the Clock” mode are original, and have some of the best puzzle design in the game.

The main color you will be seeing the majority of the time is white. Each room, light and elevator is filled with white blocks. Over time, puzzle rooms and environments will change slightly and it fits the mood that is present in the story. Through some of the game, there is no music, but further on in the adventure, music will begin to play when the story becomes more interesting. The music that does play in these few sections is fantastic. The music immerses you further in the moment and made me just want to put the controller down and listen to the current track. Audio glitches are prominent in the game. Collision effects such as a block hitting the ground will repeatedly play, and while trying to solve a difficult puzzle, these noises made me want to mute the game. Occasionally I found some issues of clipping, but it did not ruin the experience.

Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut offers some unique puzzles with an intriguing story. The difficulty in puzzles doesn’t ramp up until the end, but there are many different mechanics that are featured that it’s worth playing and seeing them all. With the asking price of $10, it’s worth checking out. After you complete the main campaign, the few optional puzzles and the “Against the Clock” mode could make you return to the game, but there is no real motivation to replay the entire story again.

A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here.

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