Month: March 2018

If the original Q.U.B.E. was a product of experimental design and unhindered student ambition, Q.U.B.E. 2 is the sophomore follow-up that almost ticks all the right boxes. No longer are you messing with unmalleable puzzle rooms; Q.U.B.E. 2 gives you the tools to have greater flexibility with your solutions and feels more rewarding as a result. It sometimes struggles to shake off the shackles of its deeply rooted narrative limitations, but it’s ultimately a wonderful puzzle game that will often have you exclaiming in joy after solving one of its many riddles.

If you played the original game, it might be surprising to hear that Q.U.B.E. 2 redefines how its puzzles work from the start. As was the case with the first game, the objective in Q.U.B.E 2 is simply about moving forward. You enter a room and need to figure out a solution to either exit it at the other end or interact with a specific object (like a power node that routes energy) to open doors elsewhere. But where Q.U.B.E. had you manipulating different colored blocks in increasingly challenging puzzle rooms, it never gave you agency over their initial placement. Armed with a new set of gauntlets that have pulsating neon energy flowing through them, that small amount of freedom is exactly what Q.U.B.E. 2 bestows on you from the outset.

The options you’re given are still somewhat limited to compensate for this, with only three distinct abilities at your disposal. Red blocks can be extended and retracted at will; blue blocks turn neutral white tiles into springy bouncing boards; and green blocks let you create a cube of matter that you can further manipulate, either by moving them around with other abilities to activate switches or use them as additional steps to reach a higher ledges. You can use a red block, for example, to push a green block in front of it, perhaps into a nearby blue spring block that launches it into the air and onto a switch nearby. Learning how these three mechanics intermingle is gratifying, and the intricate levels laid out in a linear fashion do a good job of showing you just how you’re meant to employ them.

You can’t use these abilities anywhere, though, which starts to resemble the restrictive layout of the first game. Although you have the freedom to paint any neutral white tile to a color of your choosing, there’s still only a finite number of them in any given space. Their placement always feels deliberate, acting as signposts for the eventual solution. Such design can be helpful in latter stages where the scope and size of the space you’re solving in grows to overwhelming levels, but it’s somewhat disappointing that you’re never given complete freedom to concoct unusual solutions.

Impressively, the puzzles Q.U.B.E. 2 tasks you with solving are complex in makeup and exciting in execution despite this. Each scenario has a unique twist to the trials that came before it, introducing new mechanics and obstacles. Just as you’re comfortable with spawning a cube and getting it from one side of the room to another, an element like arrays of high-powered fans is introduced. These can, for example, allow you to propel cubes at high speeds, or give you a much-needed lift to a previously inaccessible area. Later, elements like slippery oil come into play, as do magnetic tiles, rotatable platforms, and restrictive doorways that require either sheer force or elemental damage (like fire) to bust open.

Just like the three core abilities, Q.U.B.E. 2 introduces each of these auxiliary mechanics in digestible chunks. As you progress rooms will start taking on themes around these new physics, giving you a playground to comfortably experiment with them before zooming out to larger, all encompassing cranial challenges. Light-bulb moments permeate the game from the opening seconds to its riveting conclusion, with only a few puzzles that seem out of place in terms of difficulty. Several patterns emerge over the six hours of puzzling–I found myself always placing a green tile above a blue one to spawn and instantly propel a cube, for example–but their application in new challenges that tax your spacial awareness never really gets stale.

The same can’t be said for the encompassing narrative that Q.U.B.E. 2 presents, which struggles to find a consistent pace. You play as Amelia Cross, a scientist that’s become stranded on the desolate alien cube most of the game plays out in. The story doesn’t rely on knowledge from the previous game but doesn’t seem to build on anything established either. Instead, it plods along from one revelation to the next, in an attempt to slowly piece together the secrets of the entity Amelia finds herself trapped within. Its latter half is then a rush to a conclusion, quickly introducing new story beats through an overload of exposition, and ultimately leading to an uninspired binary choice at the end. It’s a pity, given that the small cast does deliver some powerful voice acting performances, especially in conversations between Amelia and Emma Sutcliffe, a fellow survivor who seems to know more than she lets on.

Q.U.B.E. 2’s world lacks the impact and intrigue of something like Valve’s Portal series but takes some design cues from its breadth of visual design. Basic test chamber-like sequences are quickly pierced with gorgeous outdoor vistas, letting moonlight flood geometric chambers and cold tile spaces. As the story progresses, Amelia is whisked away to more lush territories, where nature has overgrown the structures she’s trapped in. Vines choke the life out of walls around you as sunlight bathes the chambers you’re slowly working through, giving the entire experience a distinctly contrasting feel. Q.U.B.E. 2 might have benefitted from a higher framerate to keep up with the action at times, but it’s a consistently pleasing treat on the eyes.

C.U.B.E. 2 makes remarkably clever changes to a formula well established by its predecessor, giving you more agency over puzzle solutions with redefined core mechanics. It means veterans and newcomers alike won’t have to suffer through an overwrought tutorial, with a gentle learning curve effectively nudging you along its growing library of tools. Q.U.B.E. 2 struggles to contextualize its clever puzzles with a narrative as engaging as their solutions, but it’s still one nut that is consistently rewarding to crack.

While Capcom’s Devil May Cry series has gone a through a number changes over the years, the focus has always been on offering fast-paced combat with a side of self-aware humor and style. With the re-release of the Devil May Cry HD Collection out now, featuring the original Devil May Cry, Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition–and the much-maligned Devil May Cry 2–the HD collection should be a solid entry point for anyone looking to check out the series’ PlayStation 2 roots. While the original games still hold up, the recent HD port unfortunately retains many of the same issues that plagued the previous release.

As a port of the 2012 HD Collection, the “new” collection for PS4, PC, and Xbox One is largely left intact. In addition to each game receiving a 1080p resolution bump (an increase from the original’s 720p resolution), which includes some slightly sharper textures and characters models, the HD Collection also features a suite of side-content aimed at fans–including an in-game compendium full of concept art, soundtracks for each game, and fan art from the DMC fanbase curated by Capcom US.

While there have been some slight changes introduced for this release, including the addition of a handy return to main menu option for when you want to switch over to another game, it’s largely the same package on new hardware. While it’s great you can play these games on new platforms, many of the older issues from the port linger. After playing with the PS4, and then revisiting the PS3 version, we pulled together a quick rundown of each game, and how their particular HD upgrade has fared.

Devil May Cry (2001)

Released in 2001, this fast-paced and challenging romp through the dark corridors of a demonic mansion would set the tone for what the series was all about. Balancing macabre humor with the cheap-thrills of a 90s-style action game, the original DMC features a strong focus on creating a slightly dreadful atmosphere, while simultaneously injecting pulse-pounding action throughout. Moreover, DMC1 features an adjusted control-scheme to make it more in-line with how DMC2 and 3 play–particularly swapping the jump and attack buttons. While the combat and in-game graphics have held up well–maintaining a solid 60 frames-per-second throughout–Devil May Cry 1 tends to benefit the least with the upgraded resolution and visuals when compared to the other games.

These issues include strange audio quirks and bad ambient sound looping, slightly warped visual visual effects for attacks and special moves, and some occasional instances where some aspects of the environment and characters to disappear entirely for brief moments. This was a rare occurrence, when exploring some of the more active environments, and other during a combat encounter–which was rather annoying. What’s disappointing about the re-release is that these original issues haven’t been addressed, and many of these problems occur often in DMC1. In addition to the hiccups with the in-game action, many of the stylistic choices from the original game designed around the traditional 4:3 format–including the animated menus text–look incredibly blown out and otherwise weathered.

Despite this, Devil May Cry is still a lot of fun to play. While it’s disappointing to see that the upres hasn’t been kind to some of the game’s already dated qualities, resulting in some muddy looking visuals, the original Devil May Cry is still a strong game with an incredible atmosphere.

Devil May Cry 2 (2003)

Coming shortly after the release of the original game, Devil May Cry 2 ultimately ended up being a poor follow-up to the original, and still stands as the weakest game of the series. With some rather clunky and sluggish combat, mostly barren environments that lacked a sense of atmosphere, and along with an uncharacteristically somber tone–DMC2 lacks the same sort of edge that the series was founded on. On top of the game’s already drab and unoriginal style, visual and design aspects of the sequel have aged rather poorly–making it the most aesthetically unappealing games in the package.

Having said that, the resolution bump does give much of the textures for the characters a sharper look, giving the game’s quasi cell-shaded style a much more pronounced look–making for some interesting-looking characters during cutscenes. Unfortunately, Devil May Cry 2’s issues are far more than skin deep, which no HD port could fix. With that said, the sequel does feature Dante’s best outfit of the series, the black and red leather–which also made an appearance in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. So there’s that.

Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (2006)

As the crown jewel of the DMC HD Collection, Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition is the most content rich game in the package–and is arguably the best game in the DMC series. As the prequel, the game is more of a return to form, focusing on fast and challenging combat, and ditching the weirdly earnest story of DMC2 for a narrative that revelled in over-the-top action-movie machismo. The HD port keeps much of its luster. But like the other games, there are still some blemishes to be aware of.

One area the Special Edition falters in is with its presentation. The game features many cutscenes and story beats throughout, using both pre-rendered and in-game rendered cutscenes. While the resolution bump shows off cleaner and more visually pleasing upgrades to the graphics, which shine during combat and in-game cinematics, pre-rendered cinematics are cropped from the original 4:3 scenes, making for some rather unsightly and stretched out looking visuals during some key scenes. This is made worse when watching multiple cutscenes back to back, jumping between cropped and in-game rendered cutscenes. Despite these issues, DMC3 still manages to impress throughout thanks to its irreverent tone and excellent gameplay. Gameplay performs at a rock-solid 60 frames-per-second, and the upgraded resolution makes combat much more clear to follow, making DMC3–and all its combat rich mechanics–a total blast to play.

While the DMC HD Collection features a number of unsightly inconsistencies issues with its re-release, ultimately showing how much the series has aged since its debut, the trilogy of games still retains the feel and fast-paced action of the series. I still have fond memories of experiencing the games on the PS2, and playing through this trilogy again brought back all those feelings of excitement and frustration during the challenging combat encounters. The HD Collection is a solid way to experience the original games for those that haven’t already. And for those returning to the action, you’ll find that Devil May Cry’s patented action hasn’t quite lost its edge yet.

It’s a new week, and that means Microsoft has rolled out a fresh set of deals on Xbox Live. The lineup of deals this week is not all that extensive, though there are some solid offers to be had across Xbox One and Xbox 360.

Starting with Xbox One, some of the better, more notable deals include Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare ($30), Call of Duty: Ghosts ($20), and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare ($20), as well as Goat Simulator $3.30 and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus ($30). Goat Simulator expansions GoatZ ($2.50), Payday ($2.50), and Waste of Space ($2.50) are also on sale.

Moving to Xbox 360, some of the deals include Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare ($20) and Call of Duty: Ghosts ($16), as well as Farming Simulator 15 ($15). A bunch of Farming Simulator 15 DLC is also on sale this week on Xbox Live.

Go to Major Nelson’s blog to see a full rundown of this week’s Xbox One and Xbox 360 deals, some of which require an Xbox Live Gold membership. The offers expire on March 19.

In other news, Xbox Live Gold subscribers can now pick up the first of March 2018’s free Games With Gold titles. These include Trials of the Blood Dragon on Xbox One and Brave: The Video Game for Xbox 360.

Mobile game developer Halfbrick, the Australian studio behind the popular smartphone game Fruit Ninja, has made as many as 30 staffers redundant. That comes out to around half of the Brisbane-based studio’s total workforce. This is all according to a report today from GameSpot sister site CNET, which heard the news from multiple sources. These sources told CNET that Halfbrick now has a total staff of fewer than 30 people.

Fruit Ninja, a free-to-play game that was originally released in 2010, has been downloaded more than 1 billion times. The game supports itself with microtransactions, as many free-to-play games do.

It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Halfbrick of late. In 2015, the company reportedly laid off all of its design developers as part of a major shakeup that saw the company shifting from creating new games to supporting its existing ones. In addition to Fruit Ninja, Halfbrick created Jetpack Joy Ride, which also proved to be immensely popular.

More redundancies are reportedly coming at Halfbrick later this week. We’ll report back with more details as they come to light. Go to CNET to get the full story.

Fruit Ninja came to console in the form of Fruit Ninja Kinect, and later Fruit Ninja Kinect 2. A VR version of the game was released for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR.

A movie based on Fruit Ninja is currently in the works at film giant New Line, though we have not heard much about it recently.

In addition to Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, Halfbrick developed games like Fish Out of Water, Age of Zombies, Dan the Man, and Monster Dash, among others.