Intelligent Qube

"Addictive as Tetris, and much more fun"

OVERVIEW: It has been said that what makes the all time great puzzle game Tetris so great is it's simplicity and the fact that it's easy to learn yet difficult to master. Sony's incredibly rare sleeper ''Intelligent Qube'' builds upon that premise, and adds 3D, great music and a paranoia factor to what is essentially a block puzzle variation of Tetris. And in many ways, it is better than Tetris.

GAMEPLAY: ''IQ'' is deceitfully simple. You are a tiny little human standing on a long lane with rows of qubes (ranging from four to eight wide) slowly moving towards you a section at a time. In order to defend yourself and not get knocked off the end of the grid you have to run around and take out the qubes by standing in the lane in front of the cube you want eliminated. Press ''X'' to mark the spot and get out of the way. When the qube lands on the marked space, press ''X'' again and the qube will disappear. Some of the qubes are black. Don't eliminate them, or you lose the end row of the grid, and it adds up and will eventually result in your demise. There are also random green qubes. When you eliminate them, a green square remains on the grid. If you press the triangle button when an existing cube is on a green spot on the grid, it eliminates not only that qube, but as many as eight additional qubes directly surrounding the original qube. That allows you to take out multiple qubes at once, which is certainly something you're going to need as the game progresses with several qubes coming at you at once. If you eliminate all the non-black qubes in one round you get a ''Perfect'' rating and a thousand point bonus. If you do it in less than the prescribed number of moves (shown on the upper right hand corner of the screen), you get a ''True Genius'' rating and five thousand points. It is really much easier than it sounds, and the learning curve is pretty low. You can get the hang of it in less than 15 minutes.

GRAPHICS: No great shakes by any means. The qubes are either grey, orange or green, the background is black, and you control a little stick figure racing between the blocks. And they don't it doesn't vary at all as the game progresses.

MUSIC: It's just plain awesome, like the soundtrack of a very dramatic movie, and fits the gameplay perfectly. this is some of the best music I have ever heard in a video game, and it sounds a little like it was created by Bernard Herrmann (who was responsible for such great scores as ''Citizen Kane'' and ''Psycho'').

REPLAY VALUE: It's the type of game you will pick up and play years from now, but probably not the type of game you can play for 4 or 5 hours straight. Believe me, your eyes will cross after awhile!

CONCLUSION: If you like puzzle games, IQ is one of the best you can possibly find for Playstation. It's a continual challenge that keeps you coming back for more. What it lacks in graphics it more than makes up for with addictive, challenging gameplay, outstanding music and a whole lot more. IQ is extremely difficult to find, but more than worth searching for.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/02, Updated 01/14/02