Cubama Review

Cubama. Despite its name, this puzzle game from Game Cooks does not feature a block-headed caricature of the President of the United States. Don't be disappointed though, because Cubama is worth your time nevertheless.

Cubama offers a unique take on the practically ancient Tetris formula. Imagine if, instead of falling from the sky, the tetrominoes flew at the player's face. Also imagine if the pieces began moving at warp speed once the player hits their stride.

Sound frantic? It is. When the player starts a game of Cubama, they see a long puzzle piece that's comprised of two squares. Tapping the screen shifts the puzzle piece in one of four directions. The goal is to tap and position the puzzle piece so that it passes unhindered through a hole cut out of an oncoming grid. It's a bit like Human Tetris, but without the humiliation of getting dunked in cold water.

Still, positioning a block so that it passes through each hole without incident is harder than it sounds. The player's hand-eye coordination and response time need to be top-notch (and if they're not, well, a few rounds will bring some improvement). The grid doesn't move slowly to begin with, and it only picks up speed as the player racks up points.

What's more, the stationary puzzle piece has additional squares added onto it every few matches, so fitting the piece into each oncoming hole becomes more and more complicated. Cubama is unforgiving, too: one hit from a wrong turn and the game ends. Then it's back to start with a score of zero. It wouldn't hurt if the game had checkpoints, or the option to continue after death (preferably without making the player deal with the "$0.99 for one continue" free-to-play song and dance).

It'd also be nice to see Cubama fix its Game Center leaderboards. At the time of this writing there was no way to access worldwide high scores, though players can sign in with Facebook and compete with friends.

Despite these wrinkles, Cubama offers a good time. It gives players' reflexes a real workout, which makes it all the more satisfying to watch their high scores make that slow but steady ascent. Slap some Tetris dubsteb remix on the ol' MP3 player and go for it.