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Rubik's World
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Graphics & Sound:
Any child of the '70s or '80s will remember the Rubik's Cube as a household staple, and judging by the astronomic sales numbers (300 million in circulation in just over 30 years!), so will a child of any other era. Looking at Rubik's World on Wii makes you wonder why we haven't seen the 3*3*3 cube featured in more games. Our guess is that motion controls have finally made it logical to port a very physical experience into a virtual setting. There isn't anything here that couldn't have been done on a different platform, certainly. These aren't even the best graphics the Wii has to offer, but they work fine in service of recreating elements of the classic cube puzzle. The main element that shows up again and again is the "cubie," depicted as a simple cube of one color. Blue, white, green, red, yellow, and orange create a color palette you'll use in mini-games throughout Rubik's World. Just as these simple primary colors had no relation to the original Rubik's Cube being a simple kid's toy, the game is a real head-scratcher in places. Player profiles come already named with handles like "Dad" or "Brother" to convey that Rubik's World is a family game first.
You'll notice the music right away in Rubik's World. It is unusual for having more than a little nuance, and staying away from the typical poles of twangy rock, J-Pop, or jangly synth-laden fare. Much like titles that typify the new casual gaming revolution, sound and music stays in the background and lets the gameplay take center stage. As you open up more areas of Rubik's World, you'll find two mini-games that revolve around creating objects and music. This seems like a nod to Drawn to Life, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say. The difference is that what you draw here just appears in the game world, rather than becoming the focus of gameplay. The music mini-game is actually a pretty robust little editor, allowing you to map out cubies along multiple timelines to create your own custom selections. The graphic notation reminded us a lot of Mario Paint, but without as much depth. It's a sure thing you'll find Rubik's World charming, but some players may miss having an actual character to play. The cubies have "character" but it would have been better to work in a Mii or three somewhere during the game as a foil for the action. |
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Gameplay:
Characterizing Rubik's World as a mini-game compilation isn't quite fair, because there's more here than that. For instance, you have an entire section devoted to solving the actual Rubik's Cube puzzle. This tutorial works reasonably well, but is hard to follow sometimes. Because of the many combinations possible with a cube, any formula for solving a cube has to flex to account for what you actually have in your hand. They went the wrong way here, in terms of walking people sequentially through each scenario. If you don't have your cube in the state they present, you'll have to page your way through too much that doesn't apply to find what does apply. A better idea would have been some kind of smart tutorial with branching paths, which would not have been difficult to implement. "Do you have this? Click here." The nice thing about watching a visual tutorial for solving the Rubik's Cube is that it is way easier than trying to read instructions in a book or follow pictures. Even a video tutorial falls down against this, for not including the ability to easily and cleanly repeat individual steps. Other activities you'll open up along the way include the two DIY tools mentioned above, a game that involves knocking down stacks of cubies to earn points, mapping out directions to help cubies "escape" a level, moving groups of cubies to navigate an obstacle course, eliminating cubies by placing them in matching sequences of five, and building a stack of cubies that matches specific visual criteria.
Most of the eight games, with just a few exceptions, feature nice multiplayer options. Jumping in with another player is easy and can even be decided on the fly as you fire up a specific area of Rubik's World. If Mom isn't a fan of one game, you can still play that with Dad and then have Mom rejoin for her favorite. Without exception, the games are challenging and fit nicely into the mindspace required to solve the original puzzle. Analyzing visual information, spatial thinking, color combination, and the physics of rotation all feature somewhere in at least one of the games, playing nicely off the original inspiration. The move to a virtual world allows the cubies to take on lives of their own, with physical properties that are exploited in several games. Unlike the real puzzle, cubies can change their shape and be distorted during the obstacle-course game. This functions in a very intuitive way, by using the Wii-mote to grab them and knock them against a wall, ceiling, or floor. Simple controls are the model in Rubik's World, making it a very accessible game. The depth of the game is excellent, considering how the hard puzzles will stump parents and kids alike. After the puzzles are all solved, the replay value of Rubik's World goes down a lot, but you'll still have the opportunity to jump in for multiplayer. It's a shame that more wasn't made of online multiplayer or leaderboards, a natural extension of the fun that was missed this time around. |
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Difficulty:
Much like the original item, Rubik's World can be a very frustrating pastime. Games like Create or Compose are mild fun without any "wrong" answer, but something like Switch may only give you one way to clear a level, with a limited set of moves you must use to make matches of five same-color cubies. In-between games like Fit may have multiple solutions a player can use, but only in the easier difficulty settings. Each time you embark on a new activity, you'll choose between green, yellow, or red difficulty. The green is basically a series of training levels that show you the ropes. Yellow will have a greater number of challenges, increasing in difficulty as you strive for the red levels. After 20 yellow challenges that you only cleared by the skin of your teeth, seeing 20 red levels ahead of you can be very daunting. The good news is that in each red or advanced yellow stage, you'll rarely find more than one solution to a problem. This at least focuses your thinking and clarifies the task. Nothing quite approaches the complexity of solving the actual Rubik's Cube, but many of these games come close. Our favorite is Guide, a game that works almost like the old LOGO programming language we learned in grade school... You give cubies basic commands for movement and turn them loose on a static board. They follow your commands exactly and exit the level if you direct them well. The complexity this game achieves with only a few moving parts is really masterful. None of the red levels are for dim-witted folks...
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Game Mechanics:
Having a Puzzle game playable with the Wii-mote only is a big plus. Not everything is perfect in the control department, though. The mechanic for action is almost always tied to the (A) or (B) buttons, which you use in combination to swing the camera around, up, and down during games. Too often, we found ourselves triggering action when we were just trying to get a better look at the board. This is a drag, especially when you've busted your tail to make progress in building a shape in Create, only to watch it fall apart after you mistakenly removed a cubie. The Nunchuk attachment separates camera movement from action, and will be the route you go if precision is your goal. Especially for younger players that may not get the (A+B) mechanic, having the option to use the Nunchuk makes sense. What would have been great is to see support for the balance board peripheral, since it would have done a nice job rotating objects or the camera's view. Controls are kept very simple, with (A) typically used to place a cubie and (B) to remove one. The precision in control left a lot to be desired, but since the overall game isn't fast-moving, there isn't much reason to worry about muddy controls. It ends up being a problem with the camera as much as controlling cubies, but there were definitely times when we grew frustrated trying to move a cubie around. The physics are okay, but it sometimes felt a bit like controlling one of those grabber coin-op machines, where objects too often slip from your grasp.
Some type of online option could have put Rubik's World in a different category. This title as Wiiware would be brilliant, especially if it allowed you to compare scores and compete against players through Wi-Fi. The multiplayer included here makes Rubik's World a great family game, and a decent party game, assuming you have your wits about you. Solving the Rubik's Cube is still impressive, in our book. Rubik's World doesn't pull any punches and is only moderately about cute cubies. The real thrust of this game seems to have been to create a stimulating, inviting, virtual world populated solely by cubies and brain-bending challenges. Opening up all the game will present a serious challenge, but there is also lots to do below those red levels that is fun and accessible to young gamers. Even with some flaws, Rubik's World is a place you'll enjoy visiting. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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