Wired: As the lines surrounding the Square Enix booth at the Tokyo Game Show stretched longer and longer, I found a delightful selection of downloadable games hidden in the back of their exhibition space that was surprisingly crowd-free. Of these, the most visually striking was an Xbox Live Arcade game called Death by Cube.
There's only the hint of a story on display, but all you really need to know is that your character is a robot and you must do battle with other robots in a stark outer space arena. Most of your enemies are cube-shaped - hence the title. Even though everyone involved is mechanical, once the lasers start flying the floors become awash with blood. Sure, the promotional materials call it "red oil," but that's not what it looks like. Besides, how much oil does a floating cube really need to operate?
Death By Cube, unfortunately, is characterised by guess work. Success comes down to either being very lucky, or very experienced, and I doubt many have stuck long enough around to benefit from the latter. On the plus side, the graphics are pleasantly fluent, and it's obvious that the gameplay would have worked out just fine, had a few programming hiccups been avoided. Square Enix can be excused for a few flops to their name, and this is one of them.
WorthPlaying writes: "When Square Enix started on its initiative to make more titles for the digital download market, most gamers expected that it would go with its usual repertoire of small RPGs and strategy games. At first, the company obliged with player's expectations by releasing Crystal Defenders, a port of their tower defense title for cell phones. After that, however, they started announcing titles in genres that seemed to be better suited for their newly acquired Taito label. The first was a puzzle title called Yosumin Live, and it had mild success. Next came 0 Day Attack on Earth, an isometric shooter that wasn't exactly well received by critics or gamers. The latest release on Xbox Live Arcade, Death by Cube, is another genre that people don't usually expect from Square Enix: a twin-stick shooter. While the game plays much better than the previous effort, it's still rather difficult to enjoy."
Examiner.com
"This week's discounts for Xbox LIVE doesn't necessarily feature a theme per se but it does feature four Arcade games that were released fairly recently. Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers can get discounts up to 50% on the following games today through July 11."
