Tucked away near the back of Square Enix’s booth this year was a little-known Xbox Live Arcade-bound title called Project Cube (at least, called that for the time being), which plays a little bit like Geometry Wars with robots. And everything’s better with robots, right?
As you move your character around the playing field with the left analog stick and fire with the right stick, these little evil drones chase you endlessly. Rather quickly, they begin to pile up into some daunting numbers, so it’s important to use the resources at your disposal if you want to stick around for a while. As you can read in the controls summary above, those resources consist of dash maneuvers (which stun enemies within a certain radius of the dash point and leave a yellow silhouette behind for a couple of seconds which enemies chase, leaving you free to escape) and your shield (which can capture enemy fire and fling it back in their direction—or any direction, depending on when you release it).
Combos trigger massive power-ups, like a massive laser which disposes of enemies quite effortlessly. Needless to say, it’s a thoroughly arcade-like package, though I have to admit, I came away from the demo concerned that it would end up a bit of a button-masher. You see, while you can’t simply hold your shield down, you can tap the button repeatedly to produce lots of little shields, sling-shotting enemy projectiles all over the place. Meanwhile, tapping the dash button earns you quick movement and the other aforementioned advantages. You can almost mash on the shield button and dash gratuitously to dispose of the enemies and—if you’re lucky—reap power-ups which will prove pivotal to your continued success and high-scoring. I hope I’m wrong about this, but that’s what concerns me the most about what I played during the E3 demo. Fellow editors agreed.
We’ll have more on Project Cube as it becomes available.
