Think you’re ready to take on the Cube? Grab a Cubot and fire your laser across 50 Arcade levels to see if you have what it takes to unlock the secrets within. To succeed you will need to evade and annihilate deadly enemies – using your lightning fast reflexes to the fullest! This is a journey where only the best will survive!

Cubixx HD is a fast paced action puzzle game which sends high scoring, combo chasing game play to the third dimension!

* 50 Arcade levels set to test your skills to the limit!
* 50 breathtaking Challenges, with 200 medals to collect!
* 7 fiendish enemies: Cubixx, Mini Cubixx, Fuse, Line Chaser, Homer, Asteroid & Black Hole!
* 13 power ups to collect; both good & bad, so beware!

All-new game modes & leaderboards!

* Experience the all-new Score, Time & Line Attack modes! Set top scores & times across 150 levels!
* Challenge the world across 150 online leaderboards!
* 18 fun & original trophies to unlock! Try to get them all!

Multiplayer modes for up to 7 players!!!

* Round up some friends for hectic 7 player local co-op Arcade, Score, Time & Line Attack modes! That’s 200 levels to beat! Set up your own Cubixx HD party – don’t forget the controllers!
* Enjoy hectic, fast-paced action in the 2-7 player local Deathmatch mode across 10 dedicated arenas. This is where Cubixx HD legends are born!

There’s a Tutorial available the first time you start up the game (you can immediately turn it off and come back to it later if you want to, right from the pause screen) and you SHOULD take things slowly and read EVERYTHING the game has to tell you since going into a game such as this completely without knowing what to do will get you killed in 5 seconds… ok?

While in this wonderful world the left analog stick or the d-pad moves the laser pointer around the white lines. Right Analog Stick zooms in and out so you can find the sweet spot that allows you to play as focused as possible. Hitting X, L1 or R1 will fire the laser. While the laser is active it’s possible to cut into the surface of the cube and remove sections from each face. Once cutting is initiated you can let go of the button so you only cut up until the point where you hit a white line.

You can see how many lives you’ve got left by looking at the upper left part of the screen. The right side shows you what level you’re currently playing and the score is displayed on the bottom right corner. That spot also tells you what is the current percentage of space you’ve cut out of the Cube as well as the required percentage to clear the level. You’ll get an extra live every 200,000 points which will help you a lot during the last couple of stages as doing things perfectly with only three lives to spare is not a viable option.

In order to be able to make it far in the game you’ll have to learn how to make good use of both Combos and Power Ups… which I’ll explain to you right now:

Combos: To increase your score combo, you must cut across multiple cube faces in a single line. To do this you must hold down the X, L1 or R1 button to activate the laser and start cutting on one face of the Cube and, without letting go, cut into another face. Each new face you cut into without letting go of the laser button will increase your combo to a maximum x6 combo.

Power Ups: There’s three types of power ups that pop up here and there on top of the Cube faces. Green ones have a positive effect on you, Blue ones give you a bonus score and Red ones should be avoided as they hinder you (well, unless you want the Risky Business trophy which asks you to collect 500 red power ups). ALL power ups collected will give you a bonus score which is in turn multiplied by your current combo which can help you make the high score leaderboards if you do things right.

What ARE the power ups available in the game? Here’s a list of all of them going from Green to Blue to Red power ups along with their score value (except for the last green one):

[spoiler intro=”Power to the Up, Down and All Around!”]

GREEN POWER UPS
Freeze: Stops enemies in their tracks for 5 seconds – 1000 points
Speed Up: Boosts a players speed for 10 seconds – 1000 points
Shield: Protects the players from enemies for 10 seconds – 1000 points
Extra Life: Awards and extra life in Arcade Mode – 1000 points
Kill: Awards a kill in Death Match

RED POWER UPS
Fast Forward: Speeds up enemies for 10 seconds – 15000 points
Slow Down: Slows the player down for 10 seconds – 1000 points
Asteroid Attack: Fires some asterios at the Cube – 15000 points
Combo Breaker: Removes 1 level of a players combo – 15000 points
Reversi: Reverses the players control for 10 seconds – 15000 points
Sacrifice: Kills the Player – 1 point (Wow… thanks for the point, I guess?

BLUE POWER UPS
Points: Awards you with 20000 points
Super Points: Awards you with 40000 points
Combo Boost: Increases your combo by 1 and awards you with 1000 points

[/spoiler]

There are a lot of ways to enjoy Cubixx HD as you’ve got several game modes to try:

Arcade mode: Each Stage has five levels you must complete. Doing so will unlock the next stage and allow you to start from the first level in that stage when you die 2 minutes later. They’re nice to us, right? Each level within a stage piles in more and more enemies, good/bad power ups and/or makes enemies more extreeeemely fast (could be that line chasers are faster, could be the Cubbix, any other enemy.. or all of the above). Finishing Arcade stages unlocks other modes and challenges.

Time Attack: How fast can you complete a level? Find out in this mode as you go against the rest of the world! See how you stack up to others as each level keeps track of your best time!

Score Attack: The object of Score Attack is simple: get the highest possible score on a single level with a single life. Score Attack provides separate score boards for each level in the game. Available in either single player or split screen multiplayer Vs. modes.

Line Attack: The object of Line Attack is to score the most points from a single line in any level. Your highest scores are recorded via online leader boards. Available in either single player or split screen multiplayer Vs. modes.

Challenges: Try to achieve specific goals in 50 levels that will truly test how good you are at the game! Can you find what it takes to unlock the secret Platinum Award in each and every Challenge? Grab your controller and find out!

Death Match: Co-op too friendly for you? Then dive into Death Match mode to take a shot at destroying other players while cutting around the cube! Up to seven players can join in the Mayhem for a great group therapy experience!

The game is kind enough to let you select your laser color to personalize your experience and show others how the real you likes to solve problems and get out of sticky situations. With lasers. Ever watch Tron? Can you recall what happened when a light cycle touched a line? Good. Glad you remember. Same principle applies here so be extreeeemely careful when going near a line that hasn’t been completed. You can move on white outlines without a problem which makes the outer lines of the Cube your main road ALL THE TIME. Just be mindful of levels with line chasers as they can ruin that perfect line you’re working on.

But it’s not all fun and games as several enemies will try to limit how much you can cut out of each side of the cube and will make their best effort to destroy you at every turn. Let me show you a list of all enemies so you can be properly prepared and can endure their constant pursuit:

List of Enemies:

Cubixx: It patrols the face with only one goal… to destroy you! One touch from this enemy and you’re dead. It cannot be killed. Notice that the Cubixx dictates which side of your line is cut away. It is impossible to cut out the orange cubixx from each face.

Mini Cubixx: It’s very similar to the bigger variety except that it can be killed by separating it from the Cubixx. There can be up to 36 Cubixx and Mini Cubixx on a Cube so be careful!

Homer: Homers don’t kill you, they slow you down instead. Homers will display a “?” when they have spotted you and a “!” when they’re clinging on to you. The more Homers that stack on you, the slower you go – and they’ll stick around until you leave their face!

Line Chaser: They patrol the edges of the Cube and turn red when they can kill you OR be killed by drawing a lines around them. They will re-spawn after a few seconds and resume their relentless patrolling of your white lines. They will turn red if they’re on a path that can kill you, but will always remain on the path closest to the Cubixx.

Asteroid: Asteroids hit the face of the Cube and will kill you if your laser is in the impact zone when they strike. A red target appears on the face they’re about to hit so be sure to avoid the asteroids blast radius before it hits, otherwise it will take you out along with itself.

Black Hole: They spawn above a face and pull everything towards them. Moving to it will be much faster but moving away from it will slow you down considerably making things more difficult. The only way to avoid the effects of a Black Hole appears to be moving to the opposite cube face. It can’t seem to reach you there, but getting to it may be a struggle.

The Fuse: This enemy only appears once you being cutting into a face. It will take a second to appear and find you, then it’ll chase you along your own line until it catches up and destroys you. Head back to the safety of a white line to get rid of these pests.

Think playing like this on a single screen can get a bit crazy?

Wait until you try THIS!

Mmm, you cut and cut and cut and cut and then you ran out of space to cut out on the side of the cube you’re at? Cut yourself into a corner with no escape route? Don’t worry, the left over, unconnected mass is instantly moved until it touches a side of the cube so you can carry on without a problem. Well, you sometimes DO run into a problem since you can’t move your pointer while surfing and this could put you in the exact spot where an enemy is about to arrive at.

Upbeat electronic music is set as the perfet complement to the minimalistic visuals that keep you focused on the action on screen which means that if you end up dying it wasn’t because too much was going on at the screen or that the game was unfair to you… it was because you’re doing things wrong and try to rush into danger for no reason.

Cubixx HD is a very addictive game that has a lot to offer for all types of gamers. It made the jump from minis to PSN release with style, grace and upgrades all around that make it an even more fun experience. For less than $10 you can add this game to your collection and spend hours trying to perfect your technique to reach the highest spots in the leaderboards.

Before going, here’s a trophy guide I made for the game so you can make the most of your purchase!

[review pros=”Very Competitive Price
Lots of Modes to Choose From
Addictive and Fun for Hours” cons=”7 Player Deathmatch trophy is pretty out there” score=94]

Developed and Published by Laughing Jackal

Cost – $9.99 (OR $6.99 thanks to a 30% Discount for PS+ Subscribers for a limited time!)

Available on PSN

Want to get this game? Then you can:

Buy a $20 PSN Card!

Buy a $50 PSN Card!

Disclaimer

– Arcade Mode and 80% of the Challenges were completed before writing this review.
– Total amount of time played: 20 hours.
– This review is based on a retail copy of the PS3 version of Cubixx HD provided by Laughing Jackal.