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

Q.U.B.E.: The Director's Cut is a short game with a coherent narrative that doesn't interrupt the flow of the game itself. That alone is more than most games can manage. Many people will be tempted to dismiss this game as overly derivative. There's a hint of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and there's a dash of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The game doesn't just look and play vaguely like Portal; the narrative assumes that the player has played Portal, and uses that presumed knowledge for its own purposes. The narrative hinges on two unseen voices: a woman who asks for faith in the unbelievable, and a man (sounding like a serious-faced version of Wheatley from Portal 2) who encourages doubt by playing off the player's feeling that Toxic Games has straight up stolen from Valve. It's not ashamed to show its influences, but it becomes its own thing. There's a subtle motif of pointless repetition that's reinforced by the "doubt" character, and it contrasts heavily with the syrupy emotions reinforced by the "faith" character. I don't want to spoil the ending, but there's plenty of ambiguity to it if you read between the lines. I love it. The puzzles themselves are almost all easy. Some of the puzzles require a bit of quick action on the player's part, but it's nothing that most people couldn't handle. I finished in about 4 hours. My only significant criticisms are that the game uses far more computing resources than it has any right to use, and the narrative implies that the player can choose between one of two decisions when -- as far as I can tell -- the player can actually only make one choice that leads to one ending. I was going to make that choice anyway; it was simple moral calculus, but other players may feel differently.

A lot of comparisons to Portal, but I'd say it's the anti-pPortal. Where Portal spent a lot of time on dialog and story with some good puzzles thrown in, this game has lots of good to great puzzles with some dialog thrown in. At first it starts out simple with moving some colored blocks and quickly turns in to a gravity and room manipulating fun fest! :) It is one of the most "physical" first person puzzle games I've played. Play this one. If you're a fan of those kind of puzzles where you have to put a bunch of abstract blocks together to make a cube or separate the chain links, this is for you. I've done more thinking in this puzzle game about how to solve puzzles then most. The dialog isn't bad and the two "characters" that talk to you are great (both in quality and dialog), both with conflicting points of view and both pointing out reasons they're the one to listen to. The graphics are simple but interesting.

I loved Portal as much as anyone else, but the game had its unique charm. Just making a first person puzzler does not recreate it. Qube is basically like Portal, but without the humor, without any context or story (at least up to the point I got in the game), with annoying mechanics and overall feels like it was made in 1998; rough around the edges. A far cry from the silky smooth feel of Portal. Also, the game gets pretty hard later as more and more and more mechanics are introduced, more platforming, timing... Until I lost interest and quit the game. I watched some of the later puzzles on YouTube and they are truly ridiculous. Magrunner is a much, much better alternative. Antichamber and Quantum Conundrum are also more interesting games (although the latter can be just as annoying).

Q.U.B.E is an enjoyable puzzle game. It's appropriately compared to Portal, which is the better game, but it actually borrows from Portal more in it's narrative than it's mechanics. More on that later. Where it is similar to Portal mechanically is that you get into rooms that you must solve to move on. You do this using your ability to manipulate various blocks that make up the rooms. Each color of block has a different mechanic and you must use them to either advance yourself or manipulate the room in a certain way so as to get a ball in a slot, for example. There are even some color additive rooms, which were my favorite. There is a narrative going on in the background and it will have you questioning what's going on around you. However, it definitely preys on a player's instinct to question what they are being told in a game like this, especially those who know Portal. Especially by the end, they had me questioning everything I was hearing. What I'm not sure on is if they "cheat" with this. Things that turn out to be true are told in such a way that makes them sound implausible or phony, so you are already questioning them before you are told to. If they purposely had the voice acting sound fake to make you think it was fake, I think they cheated. Still, it ended well. My only complaint is the linear ending. While I was questioning who I should believe up until the very end, I have to listen to one voice. There is no choice. I actually thought both would be lying. I think this was a missed opportunity. In closing, if you liked Portal, you'll still like Q.U.B.E. If you haven't played Portal, go do that!