Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary is a first-person puzzle platformer game both developed and published by Toxic Games. The game follows you, the protagonist, as you make your way through a seemingly infinite collection of puzzle rooms, where you are required to navigate them using several different colored cubes that operate in differing ways. As the titular game states, it has been 10 years since the original Q.U.B.E. title was released, and 8 years after the Director’s cut, and thus Toxic Games wished to revitalize the game with enhanced visuals, added puzzles, and overall improvements requested by fans. But does the 10th Anniversary edition hold up to its promises, or does it fall flat on its face?
PROS:
The visuals of this game have been drastically improved from the 2012 original. While the original design of the game was well-conceived and fit the theme of “cubes”, it still felt reminiscent of a 2010’s indie project – unpolished and lacking character. Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary fixes all of that in spades. With the enhanced visuals, the environments feel fully realized and what the developers intended them to be from the beginning, while adding a gritty, grounded feel to them, minimizing the older, more tech-demo graphics. The lighting engine in the game also does wonders to help amplify the graphics even further. Instead of the original’s complete lack of ambient lighting and usage of flat colors, the addition of the new lighting creates a vast, hauntingly imposing aura around each level and puzzle, which helps amplify the tension incredibly so.
And the praise doesn’t just stop at the graphics, as not only does Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary offers a coat of fresh paint over an older game, but the gameplay itself is great as well. I never played the original Q.U.B.E. so coming into the game blind, I was blown away at the simplicity of the mechanics. You only have a certain number of controls, just primarily left and right click, to interact with a very select number of cubes, each a primary color: Red is a cube that can be pushed and pulled in and out of wherever it is located, blue is a spring that can be retracted or set off at will, green spawns a movable cube to use, the list goes on. But the way that they are utilized evolves throughout the levels. At first, you are propelling yourself using the springs up to a higher platform. This evolves into you rotating sections of the wall while propelling yourself in order to land on a ledge you have to pull out while mid-air. While seeming pretty simple, the interactions between these simple mechanics can lead to very difficult, intricate puzzles to solve, which is great!
CONS:
However, no matter how many praises one can say about Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary, there are some issues. Sound design is one of them. The game is very simple in its construction, and some elements benefit from this simplicity. However, the sound design doesn’t benefit from this simplicity, as the limited “palette” of sounds within the game itself can get a bit repetitive. It seems like a nitpick at first, but when playing for almost an hour, it can get a bit monotonous and quiet.
This ties into another issue of the game, which are the transitions between levels. While some puzzles are thought out and complex while still feeling simple in player input, some levels I would classify as transitions, serving only to pad the runtime between the harder levels. For example, there is a level in Sector 4 where the player needs to manipulate rotating walls in order to maneuver a ball into dye cubes and into specific dyed goals (turn the white ball into a yellow ball and land in yellow goal, repeat for red and blue goals, door opens). This is a magnificent puzzle, as the mechanics are tight and responsive, and easy to understand. However, this is followed by two super simple puzzles, one of which only uses one interactable block, followed by a gondola ride, and then is followed by another rotating wall puzzle. It is clear that in order to make the game a much longer experience, the developers padded the puzzles with super simple, borderline walking-simulator difficulty “puzzles” if you could call them that. It is very disappointing to experience a great puzzle and have it followed up with boring platforming. It’s an issue of inconsistency, which puzzle games need in order to keep the progression fluid and moving forward.
Overall, while the game has these moments of padding and the sound design could use some work, the puzzles for the most part are engaging and while simple, offer incredible challenge. Not only this, but the upgraded graphics are night and day compared with the original, and when considering all of this, as well as the added Sector 8, the inclusion of the Director’s Cut and the original game, as well as all of the other upgrades and accessibility upgrades, I would definitely recommend Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary to those seeking a new puzzle game to solve!
SCORE: 8.5/10
Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary is available for PC via Steam.
Related: Reviews by Matthew White
An avid gamer, Matthew is also an aspiring game developer. Because of this, Matthew knows not only what makes a game great, but also the hard work and artistry required to craft such a phenomenal experience.
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