A Game Sequel That Disappointed You

The original QUBE game [stylized as Q.U.B.E. despite not being an acronym] is yet another 3D First-Person Puzzle game in my collection. It was an interesting little game, it didn't overstay its welcome, it had a somewhat innovative puzzle mechanic and a familiar art style. The second game in the series, QUBE 2 however didn't carry on that legacy, unticking each of those boxes.

In the first game the player wakes up in an alien environment surrounded by white walls comprised of cubes that at times looks like a cross between the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre from Portal and a Minecraft Adventure Map. The core mechanic of being able to manipulate parts of the cube structure with certain cubes performing a function indicated by its colour is introduced gradually and takes simple puzzles at first and layers complexity as you progress.

The original game didn't have a story at first, it was later repackaged and released again as QUBE Directors Cut where admittedly the story plays out entirely through narration again akin to Portal. The story does feel like an afterthought, something that was tacked onto the game later, which is not surprising since that's actually what happened.

The combined success of the first iteration and the director's cut edition funded development of a sequel, which turned out to be a massive disappointment for me personally. Where the first game did not overstay its welcome, the second is considerably longer and at times feels like 2 different games that were mashed together into one, it could have been half the length or split into a second and third instalment in the series, that would have made more sense to me in terms of pacing.

The second game picks up with the same puzzle mechanics initially as the first, likely their attempt at maintaining continuity but this later takes a turn. There's a moment midway through the game when the narrative shifts, the art style also shifts, and the core mechanics are abandoned to be replaced by new ones; if you've played the game you'll know the point I am referring to, this is where I would have split this into QUBE 2 and QUBE 3 if I had been developing this game.

As for development itself, this game was sloppy, there were glitches and bugs aplenty, two of my save files got corrupted when the game moved from the previous level to the next and spawned the player outside of the moving platform they had been on. Since the game also uses auto-save when I reloaded my game files each time I was permanently out of bounds, something I tried everything to fix, including hacking the game but that proved to be a waste of time.

I did eventually finish the game, having left it behind for a few months it received a patch and despite nowhere in the patch notes mentioning the out of bounds spawning as a known or fixed issue, I was able to reload my save file and the player spawned in bounds finally. That did leave me with an overly critical mindset as I played through the remainder of the game, make of that what you will, perhaps my view of the ending would be different if it had simply been experienced without issue for the first time, but I was disappointed. I feel no guilt in spoiling it for anyone who hasn't played it, everything in this game ultimately leads up to a choice the player makes but it's an illusion of choice, one where two paths can be taken but they both lead to the same place so which you choose is irrelevant.

Objectively, the mid-game flip in narrative and gameplay mechanics doesn't fit. I keep making comparisons to Portal but those comparisons are valid, it's very clear this game wants to be Portal so bad but the developer doesn't pull it off. At least within Portal the narrative and progression of the story makes sense and even though the style of gameplay changes, the core mechanics the player has been using from the beginning remain and aren't abandoned, with QUBE 2 however some of the core mechanics from the beginning aren't used again, and some are only used sparingly. It was a disappointment in the end, I'm not even sure I'd recommend it. The first instalment is still worth playing, I'd give the second one a miss.