Cuboid

January 20,2009 - Creat Studios has managed to throw three games up on the PlayStation Store at the beginning of the year to start off strong. The first game is Cuboid, a puzzle game requiring you to move your Cuboid around levels to the goal. Of the three games, this one seems to be the most simple of the bunch, but does it offer enough to be worth a purchase?

Cuboid stars your little cuboid, a rectangle box, that you must move around each level to the goal, which must fit into the square hole to finish the level and stop the clock. This is very much a thinking man’s puzzle game, as it also keeps track of how many moves it takes to get to the goal and you need to be able to figure out how to get your cuboid through narrow paths with concise moves and do all of this quickly, too. It’s not all just movements that you must use to get through each level, as obstacles like switches, teleportation spots, and wooden tiles, which break when your cuboid stands upright on it, add more things to take into account when figuring out how to beat the level.

Every ten levels is somewhat of a boss level that limits how many moves you can make with special power-ups around the level that add some more slack to your limit to force you to make concise moves. The game certainly is a good game for people that like a more intelligent puzzle game to play when Tetris clones aren’t enough mental stimulation for their mind.

As a package, Cuboid is a bit lacking. Featuring just one mode, you’re tasked to get through about sixty levels that are spread over the beginner and expert difficulty. There’s a nice progression from beginner to expert so that you’re not hitting a brick wall when you get through the beginner levels. The only other thing that could offer more value are the leaderboards, being able to see your friends’ scores and trying to beat them, but they are completely broken and useless in Cuboid. Not only do you need to manually upload your high scores for each level individually and download them individually, as well, but you cannot sort through them for your friends’ times, find your own score quickly, or even weekly/monthly leaderboards. It just completely removes any usefulness from that kind of feature unless you’re a masochist that likes scrolling though the entire list while looking for your score, but maybe you can figure out why a few people have managed to beat levels without making a move and without a second on the clock.

Cuboid certainly has an interesting backdrop for its action, which consists mainly of cathedral/monastery-style backdrops where these tiles float in mid-air. It’s about as good as cuboids and tiles can really look, but it’s still a fairly plain look. Load times are fairly quick, especially when you can just hop from level to level in the main mode. The music fits the backdrop fairly well, but it gets old quickly and Creat missed an opportunity for the inclusion of custom soundtracks. The lack of custom soundtracks is definitely a bit odd since their other release for the first week of 2009, Mahjong Tales, includes the useful in-game XMB custom soundtrack feature.

Cuboid is definitely an entertaining game in its own right, but the lack of content, useful leaderboards, and custom soundtracks makes this a game that’s just not worth the $10 price tag. You’re better on putting that money towards an echochrome to get some more value for your buck if you want a puzzle game that will make you think. If an update happens to at least offer working leaderboards and custom soundtracks, this could be a decent purchase, but until then, just avoid it and save the $10 for something else.

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