Classic Gaming Review Weekly: Intelligent Qube

What's Your IQ?

In 1997, Intelligent Qube came out and completely took the puzzle world by storm. Much like Tetris, Intelligence Qube was a game that was nothing short of simplistic. Because of its simplistic formula, however, it was a widely addictive game that really forced you to use your brain. Unfortunately, the game is extremely rare these days and like many rare highly sought after video games, comes at ridiculous prices.

A game has never been simpler to learn than Intelligent Qube. Each level has several rows. Then the cubes begin to "march" forward. The entire point of the game is to capture cubes. You simply press X to lay down a trap and then X again to capture it. There are a couple of complexities to the gameplay that make it quite a challenge. For one, while your goal is to capture cubes, there are certain cubes that you shouldn't capture. These are forbidden cubes, and the penalty for capturing one is losing a row of the level you're on. There are also green cubes called advantage cubes. Capturing these allows you to set a trap that will capture all the surrounding cubes. At first, Intelligent Qube seems easy, but the game is much more complex than you think. As the game progresses, the cubes march forward and there are more rows of cubes to deal with. Just the same, the placement of the marching cubes is completely random.

At times you may even have to run in between cubes to get to the ones you must capture in order to avoid forbidden cubes. Should you ever get crushed by the cubes, they'll automatically roll off the edge of the stage and a row will collapse. If that happens you'll have to go through the same set again. If you successfully capture all cubes without capturing any forbidden cubes you'll gain another row.

The game is very deep in its strategy. It's a lot easier to screw up than it looks. The game is not that long, but the levels can throw you for a loop. Especially the advantage cube which will even capture forbidden cubes if they're in range. There's really nothing more to the game than that.

Graphically, Intelligent Qube looks incredibly smooth. For a puzzle game like this, it looks top notch. There's not a whole lot to the graphics, however as aside from the cubes and your little sprite running around there's nothing too complex to the graphics.

However, the best part about Intelligent Qube is easily the soundtrack. Beautifully orchestrated. You'll be tempted to pause the game just to listen to the music of the stages. This is easily one of the best sounding Playstation games ever released

In spite of its age, Intelligent Qube is still a great game. If anyone is looking for a simple, yet addictive puzzle game, then you'll find it with this game.