OMGJeremy

Humpday Gaming: Cubivore

In my search to play and review the most bizarre games possible, I have a few methods I use to find these games. Sometimes I just wander through the stores until something catches my eye and screams, “Hey, fucko, I’m bizarre and you should play me.” Other times I’ve just walked into specialty stores and asked to see all the games nobody has bought – that actually gets me a surprising amount of games (actually, at this point the people who work at the local EB know that I buy the worst games ever, and they call me when something bad/strange/stupid has arrived). The other way I find shit is through other people’s reviews.

Cubivore was a game I found out about through reviews, most notably GameSpot. I had seen a news update on this game in Japan where you played as an evolutionary cube. I didn’t know much about it, but I figured with a description like that, how can it be bad? I actually find out about a lot of games this way – Viewtiful Joe is a game I’ve got my eye on at the moment – and I had all but forgotten about Cubivore after a few months. Then, right before Christmas, I had been to the mall to buy presents (because now that I don’t work at the mall, I’ve remembered how to love Christmas) and while I was buying everyone their socks and underwear, I stopped into the Electronics Boutique to see if there was something interesting and new. They had a game that they figured I’d need – the forgotten Cubivore. I passed on it though, and instead informed my parents that I needed it for Christmas. Hey, I may not be 12 anymore, but I still like getting fun presents… and it meant not ending up with a tie-dye kit or a flashlight on Christmas morning.

Well, Christmas had come and after opening the presents, I did not have my copy of Cubivore, but instead received Metroid Prime. I wasn’t going to complain… after all, Metroid Prime is one of the best games ever (and no, I’m not some Nintendo fanboy – I just know a good game when I play it), but I now had to find another copy of Cubivore. Well, luckily (I think) nobody had bought the copy they were holding for me at the mall, and I somehow scraped together enough change to pick it up.

After playing it for a few weeks, I have to say I was slightly disappointed… not in the game itself, I think it’s pretty interesting and somewhat new – but it’s really not as bizarre as it was made out to be. I fully expected a game that would make me scream out, “OH MY GOD THIS GAME IS SO STRANGE AND UNIQUE THAT I SHIT MY PANTS AND THEN WASHED THEM AND THEN SHIT IN THEM AGAIN!” Well, it’s not that bizarre, but after playing for a while, I can see why it was described as bizarre. Basically it’s Darwinism at its core, but with cute little block animals.

The beginning evolution of me... as a cube.

There I am, cute little Piggy ABJeremy. This is how pretty much everything in the game are set-up, made out of cubes. Lets take a look at me, shall we? Piggy ABJeremy is basically 2 parts at this point. The big part with the face on it is creatively called your “head.” No big deal. However, the little part that looks like a tail is called… a meat flap. Say that out loud. “Meat Flap.” Maybe it’s just me, but I never thought I would use those words together. Meat Flap is a simple way of saying an appendage – like an arm, leg, or tail. As you evolve, you’ll get additional meat flaps, which make you stronger. Frankly, I just love typing Meat Flaps.

Meat Flaps.

The story of the game is that the world at one time was full of wilderness – which is to say the world was full of color. Then one day, these colorless cubeforms showed up, and began eating all of the cube creatures and stealing their wilderness. The whole world began losing all of its wilderness, leaving in its absence a colorless world that cannot support life, and the beasts that ate all the colors have grown Raw Meat Flaps, which contains concentrated wilderness. Your job is to return the world back to its former state, by defeating the colorless creatures and taking back their Raw Meat Flaps to return the color to the world. Yeah… it took me three or four reads to even understand what that meant. I’m not sure I get it now, but I’ve moved on to the actual game, so that my head would stop hurting.

The first thing you have to do is learn about your world. The instruction manual is actually pretty informative, however the game will also inform you of everything as you go through it – so skip the manual.

As you wander around, there are several training areas marked on the map. At these areas you are given some sort of task to enhance your cubivore’s skills. Well, they aren’t all skills, but more forms of evolution. If you train enough, you can grow some enhancements that will make you stronger, faster, or tougher (notice I did not say “smarter”, as nothing on this site can make you smarter). For example, you can grow horns that increases your attack strength, or increase the size of your stomach – which determines how much stamina you have. Below, you’ll see the first training area we find the wooden horse.

Horses give me horn points in real life too... no wait, I didn't mean "horn points"... I meant huge erections.

Your cubivore trains on the wooden horse to increase his “Horn Points,” which will let him grow a horn when enough are eaten. There are a bunch of these types of things in all the levels that I’ve gotten to, so make it a point to visit them all.

There is a lot more to do to evolve than to just jump into a wooden horse, however. You’ve got to learn how to fight the other creatures to get the strength needed to collect all the Raw Meat Flaps. It’s not too hard, let’s see how Piggy ABJeremy manages to deal with his first fight.

Here the Piggy ABJeremy runs blindly at his opponent.

When you find another cubivore, you must get close to him, target him (with the L button), and then jump towards him and hit him. At the beginning, this is all you can do. You must keep hitting your opponent until his life goes down to zero, then he will collapse on the ground. Then you get to steal his power from him by chewing off his Meat Flaps.

Aw look, he's eating his opponents... how cute.

After you eat a meat flap, you will then mutate into a different version of yourself, and your Meat Flaps will modify with it. I’ll show you more of the transformations later… but wait a second… let’s think about this. You defeat your opponent, and then eat his Meat Flap and it makes you more powerful. That’s the same as if I beat the crap out of the mailman, then jumped on him and started gnawing his arms off. That’s a great mental image, and it makes the game that much better.

As you wander through the landscapes, there are a few things you need to make sure to do. We’ve already seen training and attacking, but there are a few other things you need to look at. Spread throughout the maps are powerups like horn points and stomach points – and love points. Love points look like little hearts on pieces of paper, and you need to collect as many as possible so that you can mate and evolve even further. I think that’s what I’ve been doing wrong… I don’t have any love points. I normally just walk up to groups of women, pull out my junk, and yell, “Let’s get our hump on!!!” This has only worked twice.

I was going to make some horrible Whiteplains, New York joke, but I didn't. You can thank me with money.

In order to complete your way through the levels, you will have to bring the wilderness back to the land. The way to do this is to find Wilderness Bugs, which look like pieces of paper with a pawprint on them. You’ll need to hunt them down, and after you collect enough, you’ll get to watch the color come back in around the landscape – allowing you to progress further.

The above picture was taken in the second part of the first area of the game. After you find enough Wildebugs to make your way to the endgate of the level, you’ll be confronted with your first boss – a giant cubivore with your first piece of Raw Meat. You can tell a Raw Meat Flap by the picture on it. In the case of the first boss, it’s a picture of a little pawprint, like the Wilderness has on it – which is named Raw Paw. Why it has a name at all I’m not sure – but at least I got to type Meat Flap a few more times.

The First Boss - The Cubscout Beast! I wonder if he was molested by the Scoutmaster Beast... Damn, I get less funny by the week...

This guy is bigger than that picture makes him look, and he’s got two hench-cubes that attack you as well. This is the first time you get to attempt to get some skill at this game. You’ve got to learn how to dodge or block or something, or else you’ll end up getting your Meat Flaps torn off – which is never a good thing. When you run out of Meat Flaps, the game is over. However, the game is less about attack finesse, and more about evolutionary strategy. Each time you mutate into a new form, your abilities are modified. For example, the “greyodon” forms are so strong, the manual even says: “Once you become a Greyodon, it’s okay to fight without a strategy.” That’s all I needed to hear. Grey it is.

After you defeat the Cubscout Beast, you chew off his Raw Meat Flap – Raw Paw – and along with making you stronger, it gives you a new ability. Now, if I want to, I can dash (that means run faster, not that anyone should need this definition… right?). It helps when you’re trying to run away from a fight you can’t handle.

Ok, now I look like a mix between a square pig and Cookie Monster...

After getting your first piece of Raw Meat, your cubivore informs you he can now mate and produce offspring. Mating is the best evolution, because it gives you a new Meat Flap, and therefore more power. All we need to do is find some hot female cubes, a little bit of wine, some soft music, and a place for sweet sweet cube love. I know – Cleveland somes to mind… but the game has provided us with our private mating grounds.

This beats my mating grounds - then again, you can't mate with a gym sock.

This is where those love bits become important. The number of love bits that you have will determine how many lovely women will come to mate with your cubivore. I’m actually impressed with how much stamina my little Cubivore has – he went to the mating grounds, and had 5 mates, two of which made offspring. You then get to pick the one you want to keep as your cubivore, and the former cubivore you were dies when the other comes to life. It’s not as quite as sad as when my Seamen did that, but it’s still sad.

That actually summarizes the game fairly well. In order to properly finish the game, you’re supposed to mutate into all 100 forms of Cubivore – so far I have I think 15. I’m not very good at it either, but then again, I suck at all games if you ask Bobby Hollywood. Eventually, your Cubivore will look cool and tough and grow fangs and horns. I’m not quite tough yet, but I’m looking better than my original self.

The most current version of the Piggy ABJeremy.

Oh yeah. Feel the power.