Cube Burst 3D is a browser game/web app that's been dumped on Steam as if it was a fully fledged PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy web developers. Nannings are famous for publishing free browser games on the web then charging money for them on Steam... what do we call it when someone charges money for something that's free? Yeah, this is a scam/cash gouge trying to take advantage of/exploit gamers on Steam. Successful or not, trying to scam gamers on Steam is highly unethical.
When developers are highly unethical like this, it should be no surprise that the fake game mechanism they use is a flimsy, minimum viable product... why run a scam if your game is so good it can stand on its own two feet?
Case in point, Cube Burst 3D... less substance than your average Russian asset flip, the game presents a 3D cube made of sub-cubes (cubelets), but if you think this is a potentially interesting Rubiks Cube ripoff, you'll be disappointed. All you do is rotate the cube and click on matching cubelets until you've clicked on all the matching cubes the level requires. Yeah, that's it. Not even interesting for a free browser game (which this is), but remember, the developer seeks to mislead gamers into paying money for this free game. Totally unacceptable.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
The game features lazy minimalist/untextured low-polygon "retro" assets and visuals, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the early 1990s. The lack of textures is a method that lazy devs often use to disguise their lack of talent/interest in doing the graphics properly and trying to disguise it under the name of "art", or "We made it look bad on purpose", which really isn't something gamers should have to put up with. It's unclear why the developers weren't willing to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets and high resolution textures for the game. It looks bad as a result of their decisions, and that's just another reason to avoid it.
The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just iPhone screen tapping stuff. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here.
This looks and feels like a mobile app, but I wasn't able to find it on the app stores. Maybe it was removed, maybe it was rejected by Apple and Google (they do have more rigorous quality standards than Valve does for Steam, after all).
Regardless, for all intents and purposes Cube Burst 3D might as well be a mobile app, it has the same limitations and dumbed down qualities. It's impossible to recommend such a game to PC gamers. We don't spend all this money building gaming rigs so we can pretend they're iPhones and play games that might as well be mobile apps.
These technical shortcomings push this game below minimum standards for any competently developed modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was [b]only 3 players[/b]. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 140,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 140,000+ games on Steam?
Once more we see greedy devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $2 USD, but it's free to play on the web. Web developers must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay a premium for a free browser game just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this can be played free elsewhere, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend.
Just who do they think we are?
[quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b]
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]
