CubeWorld. Imaginative name, isn't it? As you can tell from the looks of the picture, it's another voxel based game! Most people have already made up their minds, lumping CubeWorld into a group with other Minecraft clones, but actually playing the game you can see that it holds almost no influence from Minecraft.
When you first start the game you are given the choice from one of eight different races. While the number of races you can play is huge, the actual amount of customization you can do to them is almost non-existent. You can change the hair, face, and the color of their hair and that is about it. Later in the game you can customize your weapons, but we'll touch back on that later.
After you have created your character you are thrown into a harsh, brightly lit, and massive randomly generated world. There are no tutorials or no guidance for the player at all. It's just you, a map, and nature. My only complaint about this kind of start is that the game has no hesitation to spawn you next to some of the toughest enemies in the game. Even the creatures that you would figure to be easy, such as raccoons, bugs, and turtles, will actually hand you your own ass. Not that the game is difficult by any means, it's just hard to identify at the start who you can actually fight.
The combat feels nice, and the sounds effects for swords and bows and other weapons are decent. I can see the combat becoming dull because each class only has a handful of spells at the moment. The talent trees for each class aren't deep at all and boils down to only a one spell difference between the two specs. For instance, the warrior class has two talent trees, one being the Berserker, and the other Guardian. The only difference between the two is that Berserker gets a spell called War Frenzy (an attack buff), while the Guardian gets the spell Bulwark (a defense buff). I would love to see a wide variety of spells, but the game is only in alpha currently, so hopefully more will come.
When you first start the game you are given the choice from one of eight different races. While the number of races you can play is huge, the actual amount of customization you can do to them is almost non-existent. You can change the hair, face, and the color of their hair and that is about it. Later in the game you can customize your weapons, but we'll touch back on that later.
After you have created your character you are thrown into a harsh, brightly lit, and massive randomly generated world. There are no tutorials or no guidance for the player at all. It's just you, a map, and nature. My only complaint about this kind of start is that the game has no hesitation to spawn you next to some of the toughest enemies in the game. Even the creatures that you would figure to be easy, such as raccoons, bugs, and turtles, will actually hand you your own ass. Not that the game is difficult by any means, it's just hard to identify at the start who you can actually fight.
The combat feels nice, and the sounds effects for swords and bows and other weapons are decent. I can see the combat becoming dull because each class only has a handful of spells at the moment. The talent trees for each class aren't deep at all and boils down to only a one spell difference between the two specs. For instance, the warrior class has two talent trees, one being the Berserker, and the other Guardian. The only difference between the two is that Berserker gets a spell called War Frenzy (an attack buff), while the Guardian gets the spell Bulwark (a defense buff). I would love to see a wide variety of spells, but the game is only in alpha currently, so hopefully more will come.
The worlds themselves are huge and from a distance look gorgeous. Up close some of the colors are really flat, while others seem to fit well enough. There aren't any textures in the game at all, just solid colors, so it's hard to tell what each block represents. I once was running through a forest and the green of the grass transitioned into a white color, and I couldn't tell if it was trying to represent snow or sand. There are loads of different animals and monsters throughout the land and it feels genuinely awesome when you find a new creature to slay. There are towns, dungeons, and small camps scattered throughout your world, each of them serving a different purpose. Dungeons are either castles or ruins filled with tough enemies that give you loot, and camps are scattered through the wilderness for a temporary bedding to regain your health. Towns are filled with vendors, crafting benches, inns, and people to talk to. Most of the NPCs in the town have nothing to say except, "I HAVE A HOUSE. I LIKE TO TRAVEL." The towns also feel sort of empty, with NPCs all huddling into a small section of town.
A big gripe that I have about this game is that is has no ambiance, and I mean none. This is one of the worst problems about that game, it has almost no atmosphere. The rest of the game just begs you to be drawn in and play it for hours but the complete lack of sound really breaks the game. I remember booting up TES games on my PC and being immediately put into the world with just the main title theme. More sounds and a subtle ambient score would really bring this game home for me.
Overall I would rather this game a 7/10 with potential to be an 8 or maybe even a 9 if it continues along this path out of alpha. If you're looking for an adventure for you and some of your friends, it might be enough to hold you in.
A big gripe that I have about this game is that is has no ambiance, and I mean none. This is one of the worst problems about that game, it has almost no atmosphere. The rest of the game just begs you to be drawn in and play it for hours but the complete lack of sound really breaks the game. I remember booting up TES games on my PC and being immediately put into the world with just the main title theme. More sounds and a subtle ambient score would really bring this game home for me.
Overall I would rather this game a 7/10 with potential to be an 8 or maybe even a 9 if it continues along this path out of alpha. If you're looking for an adventure for you and some of your friends, it might be enough to hold you in.