Q.U.B.E. 2

Twitch offered quite a few on-the-house games for Twitch Prime members in July. One of the games was even on my wishlist and two others I considered interesting enough to play. Amazon Prime is not a thing here but Amazon Video Prime is, and it gives you access to Twitch Prime the same way. Its 7-day trial fell one day short for claiming all the three games I wanted, so I paid for a month of subscription, which wasn't exactly a high price for the games either. (3€/month for the first 6 months)

More of the same

Q.U.B.E. 2 was one of them. A Portal-without-portals puzzle game with some platforming, it's story-wise a vague sequel to (the director's cut of) the first game. The protagonist is different but the narrative has the same elements: amnesia and the dilemma of if you should trust the person on your radio. Like with the majority of similar titles, making the puzzle room complex concept plausible doesn't succeed in Qube 2 either.

The game breaks the typical linearity of the genre by having rooms that you pass through multiple times while visiting its side chambers. It's a novel idea at first but becomes formulaic when it repeats later.

The first game had clean and simple appearance. Qube 2 retains the cube walls but has a lot more detail and colors. The newer iteration of the Unreal Engine allows for some seriously striking visuals. It reminds me of Mirror's Edge Catalyst, come to think of it.

Qube 1 wasn't the most difficult puzzle game and I think the sequel is even easier. I didn't get stuck at any point. Toxic Games streamlined the mechanics by removing the yellow 3-pillar, leaving you with the green cube, blue jump square, and the red (or is it orange now) pillar, which doesn't have adjustable length anymore. You can no longer apply the rotation buttons by yourself either.

New puzzle elements later on include oil sprays which applied on green cubes make them slide on surfaces. It also makes them flammable for a short while -- some doors require you to hit them with a cube or ball that's on fire.

I found movement speed almost painfully slow. I don't remember having the same experience in the first game although I don't recall it having running either. Maybe it felt slow because the other first person games I've played lately have been so fast-paced.