The original Q.U.B.E. was one of the still quite few examples of well made First Person Physics-based Puzzle games, when it launched over 7 years ago. While never fantastic, it was a solid and stylish simple puzzle game with no story, atmospheric tunes and really cool visual design, combined with some fun puzzles all based around manipulating parts of the environment. It was then followed by Director’s Cut, a misguided re-release of the game that did remove a rather annoying puzzle, but also added a completely unnecessary, badly written and pace breaking narration and, to fit the new narrated mood, a more ambient score instead of a more pronounced music of the original.
And now, a couple more years later, Q.U.B.E. 2 was released. And I cannot figure out why.
The basic logic behind the mechanics is the same – there are parts of the world that can be manipulated in several different ways, based on their colour and these parts tend to be of cube or rectangular shape. However, what has been changed completely, is that these colours are no longer set in the world and are rather chosen by the player. So, instead of, say, seeing a blue square in the level that makes you/items jump and being able to extend that into an extruded block, you see a white square which you can make blue (or red, or green). And only red (that looks more like yellow/orange this time around) can be in extruded form, and without the ability to say by how much it would extrude. So, the puzzles are now approached not just based on what options you have pre-set for you, but also get an extra step of which options can be used in which empty spot.
Which sounds, like it could lead to some really curious and more free-form puzzling, like original Portal, except no. Puzzles seem to always have just one solution and this extra step of placing/juggling colours on empty blocks doesn’t really lead to anything new or exciting. Even more, there is actually less variety to the tools and obstacles used in puzzles, and some of the new additions often feel either underused, too boring to work with or just cut down versions of things you’ve seen used in a much more interesting way in other games (including Portal 2).
And this is one of the main reasons why I question the existence of Q.U.B.E. 2 in the first place. It doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, often feeling less fun and exciting than the original. Unlike the original, we’ve got a much better selection of amazing FP puzzle games by now, all of the best known of which are much more fun and exciting than this game. And even on its own, it just feels… boring.
The story is boring, sometimes aping the tone of The Talos Principle without any of its wit or style, but most of the time just being a regurgitation of predictable sci-fi tropes with zero payoff to any of them. The music is barely noticeable. The visuals, while more technologically advanced, often look far less interesting than those of the original, which is especially easy to notice if you remember some of the really cool stylish level and room transitions of the original. And speaking of that, unlike the first game that felt like a constant fun journey forward, this game is mostly built out of hub areas, sometimes looking exactly the same as the previous ones, with fade to black and loading level transitions and horrible pacing.
Q.U.B.E. 2 just defies all reasoning. It’s a sequel to a solid game inferior in pretty much every way. It’s a very mediocre first person puzzle title that will bore anyone who’s familiar with the genre and for those who aren’t – there are far better choices to start at. And it’s just a bore to play.