Trying to keep up with all of the downloadable games and content that's out there these days is enough to make a person cry. But cry no more, because Download Lowdown is here to help. I'll sift through the good, the bad, and the weird to help you get the most from your game system of choice without leaving your house.
Today I destroy geometric shapes in everybody's favorite Xbox Live Arcade twin-stick shooter, Geometry Wa...er, Death by Cube.
Game: Death by Cube
System: Xbox 360
Price: 800 Points ($10)
The Lowdown:
If you asked me to condense Square Enix's Death by Cube into one word, I would say to you: hard. Two words? Really hard. Three? Really, really hard.
See, Death by Cube is for the old-school arcade rats who fondly remember pumping 15 dollars' worth of quarters into Ikaruga only to run out of change at the final boss. It's decidedly not for soft-bellied, checkpoint-craving fans of modern games -- gamers like yours truly.
That said, Death by Cube does make the pain a bit easier to endure by dealing out its punishment in discrete challenges instead of waves, saving you from having to repeat the same beginning bit over and over again. And even when you fail a challenge miserably, you gain chips that can be used to unlock specialized suits and new challenges.
This diversifies the gameplay -- if you don't like a particular type of challenge, simply earn enough chips by dying to skip it -- but that diversity brings with it a lack of focus. What I love about successful twin-stick shooters like Geometry Wars is the simple elegance of their game mechanics: one stick moves, one shoots, and you play until you die. Death by Cube, on the other hand, introduces 10 different suits, each with its own specialization; five different level types; a dash that confuses enemies; and a shield that can reflect bullets if used properly.
It's too much. I could never get into a rhythm with the game as I constantly shifted between suits and challenges. When I did complete a challenge, it was usually because I found some sort of exploit, Mega Man-style: find the right suit and any challenge becomes a cakewalk. And until I stumbled upon a level's golden path, those damn cubes killed me. A lot.
Guess I can't say Square Enix didn't warn me.
What the commenters on Major Nelson's blog say:
Veg1vo is so upset by the game that he can't bring himself to use punctuation: "Square Enix these are bad BAD choices of games to release on Xbla Plz make better decisions nxt time."
Shinji257 discovers that sometimes love is blind: "Death by Cube is surprisingly good but there are no screenshots so I didn't know what it would look like until I had downloaded it."
Maximegalon inadvertently sums up my opinion of Death by Cube perfectly: "Test post on an old story, ignore this."
