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I know how to deal with cubes. I’ve played Bombastic, I’ve played Voodoo Dice, I’ve
played Intelligent Qube (and really wish I could track down a copy today). Cubes work
for me. So I went into Death By Cube, feeling kinda full of myself. Oh, how wrong I was.
The cubes... the cubes are coming to get me. I’m going to fortify the door of the studio
now.
So you’re this little cute robot thing. Kinda like Marvin the Paranoid Android, only
with better weapons systems. In classic Robotron style, you’ve got one stick to move and
one stick to shoot, as wave after wave of boxy foes come after you. Blast one apart,
and... my that’s a lot of blood. Just raining down all over the place. I mean, these things
aren’t even any semblance of human! They look like dolls at best! I wouldn’t even
expect them to contain blood, let alone hundreds of gallons of it.
I have to wonder if this game was designed just to be a figurative middle finger to the
censors. I mean, seriously. It’s RAINING blood. This is supposed to be the future!
Things are clean! The graphics are nice and all, but very red.
Awright. Let’s look past the blood for a second. As soon as someone gets a mop. The
goal is to shoot down all the cubes and cube-like allies while completing a goal, ranging from
“KILL EVERYTHING” to “DON’T DIE.” Your android, who happens to be suffering
from amnesia (this is a Square Enix game, after all), is equipped with a basic weapons
system, an invincible dash that disorients enemies and causes them to drop their guard,
and a reflector shield which can absorb and return volleys of enemy fire. By spending
the chips you earn in each stage, you can upgrade your android (named Leo, or 037 if
you look at it right-side up) with homing missiles, spread fire, greater defensive potential,
or other improvements.
And then you spend chips to unlock the next world. And spend chips to unlock each stage.
The whole game runs on money. Unfortunately, this hypercapitalism creates some issues,
especially if you’re having trouble with the tough-as-nails survival stages. Each mission
has three goal scores, each worth 1000 chips apiece... but often, achieving these scores
isn’t a matter of simply completing the mission, but a function of HOW you do so.
Close-quarters kills yield not only higher points, but also increase your multiplier,
meaning if you stand back and let your homing attacks do all the work, you’re going to
succeed in your goal, but it won’t be pretty. More technically-impressive actions, like
multi-kills, causing mass confusion with your dashes, and absorbing high levels of enemy
ordnance will improve your weapons systems, opening access to reverse fire, homing fire,
and spread fire regardless of your current build.
The soundtrack is a comfortable techno backbone, accented by a friendly voice delivering instructions.
I hope that wherever she is, she’s not getting blood on her.
All in all, Death By Cube is a strange little piece of shooter fun, but the whole thing
seems a little unbalanced. I don’t know if it’s because the game starts at such
an extreme speed, or if it’s a matter of how much flak you have to survive on-screen,
but it’s an experience that takes quite a while to get used to. The learning curve
is all kinda of steep, and unfortunately for your traction, it's covered in blood. Just
soaked in it. All over the place.