It's inevitable. Whenever a game does really well, there's sure to be a string of copy-cat games. When Grand Theft Auto III changed how we look at action games, we got a string of open world crime games. When Doom changed shooters forever, a brand new genre was born. When Portal 2 became one of the finest puzzle games to ever release, all we could do was hope that the eventual clone would be even half as good.

It's not.

Q.U.B.E. from Toxic Games does a great job channeling the basic jist of Valve's unforgettable 2011 sequel, but fails to recreate its remarkable sense of style, incredible writing or attention to detail. To be fair, some of the puzzles are clever, but the rest of the game feels so lacking that it hardly makes up for it. You don't follow up something unforgettable with something that's just alright..just ask whoever followed Michael Jordan at forward for the Bulls after he retired.

"...never really grows into anything at all."

At this point in the review, you may be saying how it's unfair to compare an independent game like Q.U.B.E. to a major AAA game like Portal 2, but it's almost impossible not to. Just look at the game's opening -- much like Portal 2, you wake up in Q.U.B.E. in a sterile testing chamber like room with no clue where to go, but only one real path to take. It's really a remarkably familiar experience. Unlike Portal 2 however, you're not thrust into a remarkable story or met with memorable characters, Q.U.B.E. features no remarkable characters or story, in fact it doesn't feature any characters or story at all, there's hints at something going on, but it never really grows into anything at all. It's puzzles..all the time.

With Portal 2, you solved the game's puzzles with Portals, bet you can't guess how you do it in Q.U.B.E. You navigate through Q.U.B.E.'s chambers with color coordinated blocks. Red blocks can be expanded, yellow blocks can form stairs and blue blocks are essentially spring boards. It's a simple concept, but in the game's later stages it takes a drastic turn, and creates some awesome moments.

"...some remarkably frustrating moments."

That being said, the game also turns that simple concept into some remarkably frustrating moments. In the later levels of the game, the difficulty gets ratched up, and the blocks don't always seem to follow the rules they were governed by in the first few sections. In particular, the blue spring board blocks tend to mess up and make you fail more often than not. When they're combined with magnets and beams of light with different effects -- it can be so incredibly aggravating that you're unlikely to keep going.

So what does that leave us with? A strikingly familiar, yet ultimately disappointing puzzle game? That's what I thought, then the game ended, very abruptly, but with such a twist ending that it made sitting through the game's frustrations all seem worth it. Granted, this might be because the rest of the game was so incredibly bland that I was more amazed that there was some sense of personality, but I genuinely liked the way the game ended, even if it seemingly came abruptly.