Currah! It's Cubello!!

Did you ever have or hear one of those Currah Speech 64 cartridges? It's a black plastic cartridge that plugged into the back of the Commodore 64 and enabled your C64 to speak any words that you typed in. All very clever but the voice sounded like Roland Rat after he'd swallowed Metal Mickey and then inhaled 8.9 cubic feet of helium gas. With a voice so irritating it was only right that I, and probably most other like-minded teenage boys and girls, made the C64 swear like a trooper.

Despite my reminiscing the Speech 64 cartridge isn't what I'm going to talk about but it is important to keep it in mind. You see, I've been playing Cubello, one of the Art Style WiiWare titles, lately and while it is a superb puzzle game that challenges your hand-eye co-ordination, spacial awareness and logic all in equal measure it seems that the programmers either have a special place in their hearts for Currah's cartridge or they have a fetish about a rat, a robot and a large amount of gas.

A grating robotic voice welcomes you to the game and then talks you through the tutorial. If it's monotone, metallic drone has not perforated your eardrum so far you'll be doing very well. There's no escape though, oh no, that the damn voice won't go away! It comments on all your moves throughout the game and you can't turn it off!

Voice aside.... Cubello is a simple puzzle game. Basically you shoot one block at another block of the same colour by using the wiimote to point and the A button to fire. 4 blocks of the same colour will vanish and it's your task to clear all the blocks from each puzzle. Simple! Well, simple initially. Cubello is superficially shallow. Clear the first few puzzles, acclimatise yourself to the way the puzzle works and Cubello's depth is revealed. A quick game can easily turn into an hour as you try to complete just one more Cubello. And then another one. And another one.

Cubello looks basic but it's sufficient and works extremely well. In fact each cubello sweeps and turns effortlessly and is quite mesmerising to watch. The sound is basic, there's no music, not that I can recall at this moment anyway. This suggests that I've either become senile during the course of today or that it's a crap and completely unmemorable score or there really isn't any music. I'm 99% certain there isn't any but I wouldn't like to rule out the other 2 options completely. Oh, mustn't forget to mention that annoying robotic voice again. Perhaps it's one of the voices that Steven Hawking rejected? Who'd blame him! The gameplay deceives you into thinking it is very basic. It is a clever game indeed that sneaks up on you, taps you on the shoulder and makes you want to play and play and play and before you know it you've turned night into day.

You have two styles of play available to you. Endless Mode which speaks for itself or you can work your way through the puzzle stages one by one. Both ways of playing are excellent and while there is no 2 Player option choosing Stages allows you to pass the Wiimote to another player to see if they can beat the same puzzle or the time you've just set.

The biggest disappointment in Cubello is that the voice doesn't swear. Not once. I considered asking for a refund because of this but have since become hooked on the gameplay. At only 600 Wii Points Cubello represents a bargain and even more important than it's tiny price is that it only takes up 47 blocks of Wii memory.

Cubello is an excellent puzzle game that I'd highly recommend.

Special Gameov3r ear plugs have been ordered. Join the Forum and grab yours before Cubello becomes the phenomenon that it should and we run out! Or Gameov3r tries them all for size. Probably not in his ears.