Review: Cubemen

Every now and then you come across a golden nugget that may fly under the radar. In a season full of major releases and sequels coming out, it can be very easy to miss a good, solid game to help pass the time. I am a large fan of puzzle and strategy games as well as tower defense. Cubemen is a game that delivers on the strategy side as well as quenches the thirst for a good tower defense game that has some innovative ideas attached to it.

Graphics:

The first thing that caught my eye at the menu was the look of this game. It is done in a simplified classic style that features a unique 3D play space that you can orbit around the game board during gameplay. It presents our wonderful little Cube shaped…men in aggressive combat full of cube shaped bullets and missiles, which explode into glorious sprites of carnage and mayhem. The game runs beautifully on your Mac, PC, or even on the iPad.

Gameplay:

Cubemen presents tower defense with some fantastic spins that make it a very interesting game. Most tower defense games give you a board looking either straight down or at a slight angle. Cubemen changes that up by giving you a 3D world that you can freely rotate and raise the height in. You can go bird’s eye view if you would like, but you lose a lot of the fun animations and action shots if you do this. Like classic tower defense, you begin with a currency, cubes in this case, which you spend on units. As you earn more money you can buy more units as well as higher powered units. Some of the units include flamethrowers, lasers, rocket launchers, mortars, and even long range snipers, just to name a few. Other than elevation and the 3D aspect, Cubemen throw a nice little mechanic into the mix. Most tower defense games, you choose a location for the unit and it sits there, covering a certain area. In Cubemen you choose your unit, dispatch him from the base and select a point on the map. They then travel from the base to their location, engaging enemies along the way. The nice thing is that you can move the units at any time if you rethink your strategy.

Now, don’t think that Cubemen limits you to a simple, stage-by-stage progression game. There is a lot packed into this little package. You have three main game types: Defense, Skirmish, and Mayhem. Within each of these game types are sub-game types. These include everything from basic versus mode to games with JUST rockets, even 6 player free-for-all carnage, which is my personal favorite. Now keep in mind, you are not just stuck playing against the AI. You have the option to go online and play against people all over the world and test your base defending skills. Another little gem found in this game is that there is an iPad version, which gives you the same gaming fun on the go. A nice little twist to this is that you can play against people on Mac, PC, and iPad. So you can take your Cubemen slaying skills multiplatform and prove you are the best!

Cubemen does offer some customization to your units, you can choose from various faces and skins for the Cubemen as well as change the color of your team.

Summary:

Overall, Cubemen is a very fun and addictive game. Well worth the sticker price. I personally would like to see a few additions to the game. I would like to be able to upgrade my units to new weapons or abilities as I earn the money for it. But the developers seem to be on top of improving and making this game better, so maybe we will see some of those extra features down the road. I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a good strategy game, tower defense, or just a good time killer. It is very addictive and with the multiplayer features it keeps the challenge level high as well as the competition fresh. This is a very big present in a very small package. Available now directly from the Cubemen website or on Steam or in the Apple App Store.