A great remake of the flash title Bloxorz, Cuboid is a puzzler worth buying.
The first of two Creat Studios titles that were released onto the PlayStation Network last Thursday is this puzzler, Cuboid, which is apparently a remake of a popular flash title called Bloxorz. Basically, they're identical in both rules and how they play, but the level design and tutorial system feels far more polished in Cuboid than in its predecessor. Of course, there's the HD visuals and sound quality boost as well, along with a more attractive background environment, but that stuff definitely takes a backseat to the simple, yet addictive, gameplay.
For those of you that haven't played this before, let me fill you in on what Cuboid is about. There's a series of small stages composed of a bunch of tiles, with one square tile missing to represent the exit. You control a rectangular block around this board, flipping it end over end in an attempt to navigate the board and line up your block to fit down the single square opening at the end of the stage. There's a few obstacles in your way, like wooden planks that will break if you bring the full force of your block down on them (you need to have it lay down and roll as opposed to flipping it end over end), along with switches that can cause platforms to rise and fall, opening or blocking of sections of the stage. Finally, there's a teleport button that will split your block into two squares and send them to various places on the board, requiring you to reunite the two pieces together and drop it into the exit.
Like I said, the game sounds simple, and the mechanics definitely are, but each stage does a great job of amping up the difficulty, all the while tossing in the new obstacles and mechanics (like a limited move counter) as you advance thru the game. Also, the amount of moves you take to finish a board are counted and tallied at the end of a stage, and there's some online leaderboards present to give the game a little competitive feel between friends, but there's no other online mode present. It would have been nice to see a few new features thrown in, but at least the main game is represented really well, and I'm glad to see it get a release on one of the major console download services.
I do think something like Gamefaqs will probably ruin the game for some people down the line, so avoid going for a FAQ if you get stuck, it'll definitely suck the fun out of things. There are two different difficulty modes, and the expert one is absolutely hard, so that will add a lot more life to the game for most players instead of just getting a week or two of gameplay.
It might take a bit for the game to really click with you when you begin, but once you get the hang of what to look for and when to flip your brick sideways or head over heels, you'll be trucking right along until you run into the next head scratching situation. However, I never felt frustrated with the puzzles, and while I would get stuck on something here and there, it was never to the point that I wanted to actually quit playing. I still have a bit to finish up in the main game, but I absolutely look forward to seeing it thru to the end, and I honestly feel that this is well worth the $10 asking price.
Even if you've played Bloxorz numerous times before, there's still plenty of new stuff to see in Cuboid, like the different puzzles available, and if anything you've already got a head start on how the controls work and what to look out for. However, if you're absolutely new to the game, I think you'll really enjoy this title, especially if you're on the lookout for a fun, new puzzle game, and I highly suggest picking it up.
