Cube First Impressions

At its recent press event in San Francisco, publisher D3 was showing off a number of previously unseen handheld games. One such game was a 3D puzzler titled Cube in which you'll assume the titular role of a cube tasked with negotiating around 135 hazard-filled levels as quickly as possible. Your objectives in each level will simply be to reach the finish line and, if you want to stand any chance of achieving a "gold" score, collecting all of the keys scattered around the environment. Each level is a maze of sorts, constructed from cubes the same size as the one that you're playing. And it's suspended in midair, so you're able to move on three different planes while using the shoulder buttons to control the camera.

Hazards in the game will include bombs, conveyor belts, elevators, moving barriers, spikes, and the like. Getting past these obstacles will occasionally require nothing more than good timing, but for the most part it'll be your brain that's getting a workout rather than your fingers. Not all of the items that you'll be interacting with in Cube will be dangerous, although the only useful ones that we saw during our time with the game on this occasion were switches that built bridges to other parts of the level or detonated bombs safely when we triggered them.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Cube is that you'll be able to design your own levels and then share them with friends. Furthermore, any levels that you create yourself--as well as the more than 30 included with the game--can be used in competitive or cooperative multiplayer games. We didn't get to try any out on this occasion, but we look forward to bringing you more information on Cube as soon as it becomes available.