Death By Cube Review

We’re told these are robots filled with bright red oil. But, c'mon, it’s blood.

Square Enix isn’t exactly known for its memorable shooters, save for the PlayStation classic Einhander, so we’re always happy to see the company take a chance on one (even if it ends up like 0 Day Attack On Earth).  Its latest Xbox Live offering, Death By Cube, is a fun, albeit very difficult, game where you control a robot on a small dimensional grid, shooting at everything that moves.  These consist of red and black cubes, chasing after you with a vengeance and exploding in a colorful bloody burst when hit by gunfire.

While Death By Cube follows the typical twin-stick shooting set-up (left stick controls movement, right stick directs your gunfire), there are a couple of additions that make it stand out.  The first is a dash ability.  This allows you to avoid large groups of enemies with a last second burst of speed.  What’s even better is any caught in its temporal wake become confused, leaving them vulnerable for a second or two.  This makes them easy to shoot, while also increasing your multiplier.  The other ability, Force, is even better.  Using it, you generate a shield around your body that stops any gunfire heading your way.  You can hold it in place for a couple of seconds, then bounce it back towards the cubes in retaliation.

Both of these techniques aren’t just cool, they’re necessary to survive.  By stage four, the screen overflows with cubes, and if you don’t react quickly enough, you’re dead meat.  The difficulty curve is very high in this game, so if you don’t take easily to frustration, you might want to consider skipping this one.  However, if you can learn and master these abilities, you’ll have fun here, especially once you get a hold of a screen-clearing power-up, such as a laser that fries everything.

Leo isn’t the only robot taking on the cube uprising.  Throughout Death By Cube, you’ll earn chips, which in turn let you purchase new comrades to join the fight.  These include robots with better rate of fire and maximized shielding.  Playing around with them gives the game some replay value, as you can try and shoot for better scores on each stage.

Along with the single-player campaign, Death By Cube also supports an eight-player online deathmatch through Xbox Live, where two teams of four fight for domination.  It’s okay, but nothing we went back to after a few sessions.  The problem is these battles don’t last long.  You’ll try this out maybe once or twice, then go back to flying solo.

The team at Premium Agency went for a unique appearance and sound with Death By Cube, although it’s nothing entirely memorable (save for those bloody messes we noted earlier).  The overhead view works well for a game like this, but Leo and his robot chums don’t show much difference in their animations.  The grids also look the same for the most part, although we’re impressed how fast the game holds up, even with hundreds of enemies on-screen.  As for the music, it’s nothing special.  The same rock riffs repeat over and over, with very few sound effects backing them up.

Death By Cube has hardcore shooter appeal that will have some of you chipping away at it until every single aspect of its gameplay is mastered.  But for some of you, it may be too much to bear.  Your best bet is to check out the Trial version and see if you’re ready for this bloody Death.