The notion of user-generated content on the Wii U seems like a natural fit. The Gamepad opens up interesting second screen possibilities that could aid in easy creation and manipulation of worlds and ideas. Alas, now that Minecraft is probably never coming to the console, our hopes would have to remain with Mario Maker as our only outlet.
In comes Cubemen 2, a game that may share an aesthetic and creative kinship with Mojang’s blockbuster but emphasizes a more console-like multiplayer experience. It’s tower defense with a few notable twists, and it certainly lives in a category that the Nintendo console is missing. That may ultimately be its savior, in a roundabout way.
I’m starving to find an imagination outlet on the Gamepad. Apart from art apps and a few hair salon “things”, creation isn’t as prevalent with the Wii U as it should be. Cubemen 2 focuses on it directly, providing a deep range of customization and tools used to build and manipulate. Puzzles are created from combinations of blocks, obstacles and traps. Worlds can be multiple levels, with topography that can reach several layers high.
Different themes exist as well, allowing us to further customize our troops and designs with color, texture, and even light. Even though everything is purposely pixelated by its art direction, adding the layers of effects seems to bring it all to life, reaching out from the cubed world the game resides in. It looks pretty on a big TV, though may feel extremely constrained on the Gamepad itself.
And it’s all very easy. Just a few taps on the screen and we’re quickly painting images that our troops will travel on. The worlds can be saved locally and uploaded to the Cubemen servers, available to not only players on the Wii U, but also those on Steam and iOS. Because of that, the content that players of the game have put together is already extensive. I move from one world shaped like an 8-bit eagle sprite to a medieval castle that spans several floors. I play across Game of Throne’s Wall and through a baseball diamond. I can have epic battles or small singular skirmishes.
This variety will keep us coming back, and may be enough to overlook the unfortunate issues the game has with controls.
Cubemen 2 doesn’t take long to throw us into its hectic play mechanic. Speed is as important as troop placement here, and knowing when to drop a gunner is just as necessary as where. Veterans of strategy tower defense games will feel right at home. The two tutorial campaigns are short, but are only there to help us learn our way around the UI and to get us working efficiently. For those of us uninitiated in the genre it can take several tries to survive through just one of the campaign levels, and we’re forced to refine our play style and tactics until we finally understand what to do to complete the tasks and make it through. In the end, the tutorials are more of a grind than a learning experience.
That can make things very slow. Cubemen 2 is a very meticulous tower defense game; it asks us to do a lot at once, to know exactly where our troops are on the play field and how they will react, and to keep track of our opponent’s progress. This is a deep, methodical game, and shouldn’t be considered for casual gamers. It can — and will — get frustrating. At times when enemies pour out of their portals we want the game to be more action-oriented, at others we want it slower and to place a deliberate emphasis on strategy. For one, we don’t always know what the strengths and weaknesses of the units are until we deploy them, and by then we realize that we’re wasting resources spawning and placing the wrong kinds. It takes time to learn the troop selection, and we don’t always get that. At least we’re not trapped in place; Cubemen 2 allows us to move around our units at will, and to even send some out on their own. I especially found it interesting to deploy them just to see how they’d react to specific types of environments.
Multiplayer battles are no better. At the time of writing, the online community is growing slowly and steadily, but those that are on it are essentially masters of the game. Battles don’t usually go in my favor, and so I end up downloading the user-generated levels for play by myself. Thankfully, stat-keeping is extensive, and does give a great sense of everything we’re doing wrong or right in preparation for future battles.
Controls, however, are one area that Cubemen 2 doesn’t excel at. I like to zoom in and out of the playfield as needed, and with the game starting the perspective fairly far overhead and the use of a slow camera it can make it a chore to focus in quickly. It’s especially difficult when there are several characters and battles raging on the screen, as there is no way to zip around swiftly between them. Navigating the battlefield doesn’t feel intuitive enough either. Tapping in perspective when a point is further back from view can lead to inadvertently dropping troops in the wrong spot or too close to a trap. It never feels as accommodating as a mouse and keyboard, or even to the level of Minecraft on consoles, which is an expectation now.
[pullquote_right]this is the place where all of the creativity is going to go[/pullquote_right]
Getting past the controls can lead to an interesting, enjoyable experience elsewhere. The game lives in the online space. Every player in the community seems to have completely different approaches to managing the battles. Some throw huge waves after wave of units at once, while others micromanage individual pieces, like a chess game. It offers a unique experience each time, especially in conjunction with the user-created levels, and it can become enjoyable if content is downloaded regularly.
Genre addicts will be able to feel comfortable with Cubemen 2, but casual passers-by may not be able to jump in as quickly and may feel as though they’re missing some content. Over time that available content will continue filling up, but it may need to offer a lot more than just level designs if people will be expected to stick around. As one of the few games to offer this kind of experience on a Nintendo platform, anyone interested in the genre is gravitating towards it instinctively. That’s its advantage right now. It’s not an overly exciting game initially, and it’s actually sparse in content if users don’t download the community levels, but with nothing else out there then this is the place where all of the creativity is going to go.
This review is based on an eShop code sent to SideQuesting by the developer.
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