QUBE

You'd be forgiven for looking at Qube and thinking "Wait.... what?", because that's nearly all we could do while we were playing it. Looking as if it's set in some kind of a massive safe room of a mental asylum (padded walls are FUN!) and with a constant feeling of dread (mostly thanks to a very sparse soundtrack and being totally on your own) like something awful is about to happen, Qube certainly keeps you on your toes.

With no back or character story, it's easy to put yourself in the shoes of the protagonist. Waking up lost and confused in a strange place, inexplicably wearing Nintendo Power Gloves, isn't something that happens as a rule... Depends where you go out drinking we suppose, but generally no.

You soon realise that your gloves can interact with red, blue, green, yellow and pink cubes (which stand out in their very white surroundings), with each cube performing a different action. You must decide how to use each cube in order to progress from chamber to chamber. The beginning in easy enough, but just when you think "Damn, I must be really clever. This is a piece of piss!", you are pretty much set on fire and dropped into a volcano. Only not as painful.

While graphically nothing amazing, it is the simplicity of it all that makes it so genius, and at the same time yourself so frustrated when you can't solve a chamber. The fact that all you need for each puzzle is use the cubes in the correct order, you can very quickly build up what we like to call 'THE RAGE'. 'THE RAGE' is different from normal rage, because you don't become uncontrollably angry and do something like push a granny down some stairs after duct taping her to an office chair. What 'THE RAGE' does, is push you on, making you not want to quit until you complete whatever section you're stuck on. This leads on to a celebratory version of 'THE RAGE', which then keeps you stuck to your chair until you pass out from lack of sleep, food or water. Whatever happens first.

Every cloud has a silver lining... but there's still a big fuck off cloud isn't there! Downsides are mainly total lack of multiplayer and the overall playtime of the game. In terms of multiplayer, we doubt very much that competitive play would've worked, but some co-op would be nice. As for the playtime? We got through QUBE in little over 3 hours of brain-melting labour, which isn't very long, but then there are worse things you could spend 12 quid on... and what else were you gonna use your brain for anyway?

The most amazing thing about Qube is that even though it is essentially about moving cubes, it never seems to get old, tired or boring. Every chamber manages to present you with a new challenge, and each solved section is more of a triumph than the last.

Get it. It's hip to be square.