A SNOUT TO DIE FOR
Also for: Android, iPad, iPhone, Linux, Macintosh, Playstation 3, PS
Vita, Windows, Xbox One
I might be dimwitted, but I finally get it. He's called Q*bert because he
jumps on cubes. Get it? Cu-bes. Qu-bert. How witty. Well, with that
logic Q*bert: Rebooted is no longer a valid game title, and this
game should be a new franchise called Hexagonal*Prismert. Because he no longer
jumps on cubes, but on hexagonal prisms. Get it? Hexagonal-prisms.
Hexagonal-prismert.
This is another game in the myriad of classic reboots that is easy to pick up but hard to put down. Because of this, the PS4 doesn't seem like a good fit - phones or other handhelds would be better - but since Sony owned the Q*bert license through Columbia Pictures, at least at the time, they might as well support it. And it's not like they had an overflowing library of games for their own handheld, the PS Vita.
In case you're unfamiliar with the classic 1982 arcade game, Q*bert is an orange ball with two big eyes, a snout like an elephant's trunk and two legs. He is known for throwing temper tantrums through grawlixes when an enemy catches him. His mission is to jump between a number of hexagonal-shaped boxes (they were cubes in the original classic, which matters more than you might think), and land on each one at least once to change their color. The moment you've changed every box to a certain color, you've won the stage.
A few differents creatures spawn at fixed locations after a while, with different behaviors, making your task crazier and crazier as you go. The most aggravating must be the little, sunglassed green guys who reverse the colors of the hexagons back one step, sabotaging your hard work. There are also red balls, bouncing alarms and enemies that home in on your position (one of them is called 'Homer' - also witty.) With three stages to every level, and 40 levels all-in-all, this game is set to last quite a while.
All things considered, Q*bert: Rebooted is surprisingly... average. Or rather: it is fairly decent, apart from level 39 - the penultimate one - which sucks balls. It should go down as one of those legendary "almost impossible to beat" levels. You cannot complete it without an ungodly amount of luck and a perfect plan. It is so poorly (or devilishly) designed that plummeting to your death can sometimes be preferrable to staying alive, if you want to beat it.
You move by pointing the analogue stick in the desired direction and hitting 'X'. This is one step too many, especially in heated moments. With the added dimension of hexagonal platforms, you occasionally might jump in the unintended direction. Sometimes you leap to your death off the playing grid, or into an enemy, because you tilt the analogue stick just a few degrees wrong.
Playing Q*bert is an ebb and flow of emotions - you rage a great deal, but you also celebrate some. One thing makes me giggle, and it's not in the game proper. It's the mad concept of updating a roughly 40-year old game character into a fully developed 3D image. It's like an accomplished artist taking one of their first childhood "head-and-feet" stick figure drawings, and updating it using their current skills some 40 years later. The result would be a photorealistic portrait of a creepy human head with feet where the neck should be.
Early video game characters were simple by necessity. Technical limitations
didn't allow for more than a few pixels and colors, and gameplay was
uncomplicated because there wasn't enough internal memory to support very
complex systems. The best of them, like Pac-Man or
Space Invaders, captivated players by demonstrating how to ramp up the
difficulty to match the player's increasing skills. Today, the best of these
oldies can still be worthwhile distractions (or lifestyles if you're
Billy Mitchell).
Except for level 39, Q*bert: Rebooted does a decent job of resurrecting that type of game. When Q*bert performs awesome evasive maneuvers, you're in charge every step of the way. Modern games often channel such feats away from the controls and into animation. In Kingdom Hearts II, which I beat recently, you can perform physically impossible combat stunts by simply spamming the 'X'-button. On some level it works, but it takes some self-delusion to accept you're the one pulling them off.
Q*bert: Rebooted doesn't hide behind visual spectacle. When playing it, you can sleep soundly knowing you're the one doing the impossible. You're the one scoring high and rushing through an entire level, earning three perfect stars towards level progression. Its core gameplay is there, bare bones, for everyone to see and, if they dare, partake in. By sticking to the classic concept and nothing more, it lacks potential, but at least does what one could expect.
Growing up, I was never a big fan of Q*bert. Maybe that's what helps me accept this reboot as passable. Certainly, a big Q*bert aficionado would find the controls and hexagonals sacrilegious. But I'm not one of those, and since it came to me for "free" with the PS Plus-subscription, I cannot complain. At least not until level 39. Did I mention that it sucks?
Question is: Now that I've beaten the campaign, will I play the classic version that came bundled with the game? Entertaining idea. Now #*@$ off!
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