OMG Nintendo

When you first start this game and hear the calming music, the soft, gentle visuals and the Mii-like characters, you can be forgiven for expecting this game to be a light-hearted experience. You would still be very wrong, but you can be forgiven for it.

In truth, You, Me, and the Cubes is a game about the fragile balance of life. A lot of effort is put out with small returns and, even when you succeed, you may just be co-signing much of what you have created to an endless pit of darkness anyway.

The concept of the game is that you have a cube floating in a void and the ability to create cute little humanoid creatures called Fallos by shaking your Wiimote. With a flick of your wrist, you toss the Fallos out of your Wiimote and onto the cube. Fallos are a lot heavier than they appear however, so you need to balance them properly or the cube will tilt and the little guys will fall into the void. Success comes when a set number of Fallos remain steadily on the cube, causing it to flip and grow, leading to more complex puzzles for a set of ten rounds per stage.

The growth of the cube, incidentally, leads to the cruelest thing about the game. The final score for a stage is based on the number of Fallos that ultimately survive to the very end of all the rounds. Once a round is cleared, a Fallos that is steadily on their feet will sit down and become unmovable, going with the movements of the cube as it flips around to form a new round. However, if the Fallos is still off-balance when the round ends, despite counting for that round, they will not count towards your final score, as the motions of the cube will knock them off. This can lead to situations where you have cleared a stage but your score is only those Fallos that have survived the final round. Fallos that are on their feet will try to help out those near them that are not, but do not count on that helping very often.

Later stages throw in gimmick cubes, as well as the potential for your Wiimote to spawn an evil monster that knocks over Fallos. Each lost Fallos deducts from the time given to clear the round, so this make for a frantic experience. This leads to the game’s biggest weakness: you have to shake the Wiimote pretty hard to get the Fallos to form and you will be doing that motion a lot. It is very likely that your wrist will tire out before long, making any sort of extended playing sessions uncomfortable.

In short bursts, You, Me and the Cubes can be a fun, if incredibly challenging experience. However, the difficulty curve, and the intensity of the required wrist action should be considered before buying.