Quantum Conundrum Review
Jun 22, 2012 Quantum Conundrum is at its best when it requires your brain, rather than your reflexes, to do the heavy lifting. But the occasional frustration that results from these weaker moments isn't enough.
Quantum Conundrum is fruit of the same family tree that produced Valve's popular Portal. Airtight Games' Kim Swift was the lead designer on Portal before leaving Valve to work on this colorful new game. With that shared parentage, one might hope for Quantum Conundrum to capture some of Portal's quirky magic.Comparisons like that put Quantum Conundrum in danger of disappearing under Portal's shadow.
The game can easily be written off as 'Not Quite Portal' - Airtight's puzzles rely on sometimes wonky physics and the writing doesn't always work. But even with some problems, Quantum Conundrum offers a worthwhile goofy, mind-bending challenge.
Quantum Conundrum begins with the mute main character's arrival at his eccentric uncle's mansion for a visit. In this case, that eccentricity has left said uncle trapped in a pocket dimension, and he needs your help to escape.
You'll be aided in this effort by a powerful glove called the IDS (interdimensional shift device). This technological marvel allows you to swap between five different dimensions at will: fluffy, heavy, slow, reversed gravity, and normal.Each dimension is presented in its own clever visual style, from the washed-out brightness of the fluffy dimension to the sepia tone, silent film look of the slow dimension. Quantum Conundrum is flooded with small touches that kept me smiling, like the way pictures hanging throughout the mansion go through humorous transformations as you switch dimensions.The family reunion isn't all sight-seeing. Quantum Conundrum's mansion is full of deadly obstacles that can only be navigated with the IDS.
Each room contains a handful of puzzles, simple tasks at first - you might activate fluffy dimension to lift a heavy safe onto a switch, or jump into the slow dimension to safely navigate a series of rotating death lasers. As the rooms grow in complexity, you'll find yourself in situations that call for the use of multiple dimensions. More than once, I was stuck staring dumbfounded at a room for tens of minutes. But the struggle comes paired with reward; solving some of these brain-teasers made me feel like a genius, even if I had to turn to help from friends once or twice.I felt a whole lot less brilliant fumbling with Quantum Conundrum's physics. While many puzzles are set up with all the pieces perfectly in place, some require you to stack safes, throw boxes, or use reverse gravity to ride furniture across pits of deadly 'science juice.' These challenges leave you at the random whim of Quantum Conundrum's unpredictable physics engine.' QUANTUM CONUNDRUM' ISN'T AS TIGHTLY-WOVEN OR CONSISTENTLY FUNNY AS 'PORTAL'.
Reception Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime received positive reviews from critics. Aggregate review website assigned a score of 82/100 for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions, and a score of 80/100 for the PC versions.Simon Parkin from, playing the PC version, recommended the game. This limited collector's edition included, among others, a themed with -free copy of the game, the original soundtrack on, a key (downloadable on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms), and various collectibles.Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime became free to members on in February 2017 and to members on in April 2017.
Is the safe that I just tossed across the room going to land - and stay - perfectly on that switch, or is it going to wobble just enough to fall off? Will the stack of boxes I'm balancing on hold steady or topple? Failure usually just means retrying a tiny portion of gameplay no more than a minute or two long, but it's frustrating when you have to do so multiple times and when your success or failure depends largely on luck.Despite issues with the physics, Airtight Games has nailed the easy-to-screw-up first-person platforming in Quantum Conundrum.
I was able to jump from floating tables to tiny ledges with the same speed and accuracy I would expect from a third-person platformer. The height and length of jumps may not make much sense for the protagonist's young age, but they feel just right for gameplay.
Kim Swift is best known for her time spent at Valve, developing one of the most highly regarded puzzle titles of our generation in Portal. Responsible for the level design of the game put her in a great position to lead her new project at AirTight Games. That project is Quantum Conundrum, and it rivals Kim’s previous work in nearly every way. Considering the lack of games that contain both the polish of “AAA” experiences and requirement of brain power to operate, Quantum Conundrum will likely resonate with those gamers that appreciate being challenged while not sacrificing the presentation expected of current generation titles.
As expected, Quantum Conundrum is very much like Portal. Many parallels can be drawn between the two games by anyone that has sat down and played both of them. While puzzles are solved by using different tactics in Quantum Conundrum, there are still some basic traits that pop up in both games. Using weighted cubes to activate doors to access new areas is a notable similarity. Your puzzle solving weapon in QC bears an awful resemblance to the portal gun as well. Bluntly, if you enjoyed Portal for its puzzle solving, you’ll really enjoy Quantum Conundrum, because there’s enough variation that challenges your brain in new ways.
Dropped into this whimsical world where you play as a 12 year old visiting his scientist uncle, you’ll traverse his mansion in search of him, while navigating through a myriad of puzzles. Much closer to the original Portal than Portal 2, Quantum Conundrum doesn’t have much of a story to tell. Your job is to find and rescue your uncle using this newly acquired Interdimensional Shift Device, while given guidance by the game’s narrator. You’ll come across weird creatures, and interesting level design that fill in some of the blanks in the backstory, but if you’re coming to Quantum Conundrum for the story, you may leave disappointed.
A fearless New York despatch cyclist finds himself the target of a corrupt cop when he's given a mysterious message to deliver from one end of Manhattan to the other. Bike rush movie. Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts his foot down as the precocious pedaller while Michael Shannon delivers a swivel-eyed study in evil as the bent NYPD detective hot on his trail. Writer-director David Koepp never lets the momentum falter in a high adrenaline thrill ride terrifyingly shot at street level and boasting some eye-popping chases through the Big Apple rush hour.
The Interdimensional Shift Device is at the core of Quantum Conundrum’s gameplay. It allows you to shift between the Fluffy, Heavy, Slow Motion, and Reverse Gravity dimensions. Worn as a glove, the IDS does need to be powered by battery; each dimension requiring a specific color. Each level is powered by a generator, and whatever batteries you may find when you enter, can give you a hint on how to go about solving the problem at hand. Quantum Conundrum starts off fairly slow when it comes to difficulty. Letting you become familiar with the powers that you have, you’ll be tested with some rather rudimentary puzzles to solve in your first hour or so. As you progress, clever puzzles will give you that same feeling of accomplishment as in Portal, and there’s plenty of variation found throughout the game. With this variation, Quantum Conundrum also relies heavily on platforming in the 3D space. You’ll need to both solve and execute many of the games puzzles if you want to progress. This can lead to a bit of frustration after you’ve been put to the test mentally, then again, what puzzle worth solving doesn’t do that?
The overall presentation in Quantum Conundrum can best be described as light-hearted. It’s also where Quantum Conundrum differentiates itself from Portal. The game feels more wholesome, and far less sinister than many portions of Portal. The color palette and art design are something straight out of Disney, and aside from the difficulty curve, its a title that almost any age can enjoy. Though the game does deal with the death of your character, and following each death, you’ll be treated with things you’ll no longer get to enjoy because of your unfortunate end. Professor Qwadrangle is voiced in a mixed performance by John DeLancie. He hits humor, sarcasm, and informative strides throughout the game and acts as your GlaDOS in Quantum Conundrum. Dimensional Shifts cause graphical changes in the game, according to which you use, you’ll see varying effects on your environment.
Quantum Conundrum takes alot of the core features of Portal and builds off of them in thoughtful ways, it just doesn’t quite hit the same marks in the story telling department however. There are plenty of puzzles to engage your gamer brain throughout the 6-7 hour campaign, and there’s a bit of replay value thrown in with the ability to go back and collect hidden items. More intriguing, it falls into that full-game experience for small price category. At $15.99 on Steam, it’s a heck of a value proposition. For console fans, Square Enix has plans to bring the title to XBLA and PSN on July 11th.
- This article was updated on:January 14th, 2014
Quantum Conundrum
- Available On: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
- Published By: Square Enix
- Developed By: Air Tight Games
- Genre: Puzzle Platformer
- US Release Date: June 2012
- Reviewed On:
- Quote: 'Quantum Conundrum takes alot of the core features of Portal and builds off of them in thoughtful ways, it just doesn't quite hit the same marks in the story telling department however. There are plenty of puzzles to engage your gamer brain throughout the 6-7 hour campaign, and there's a bit of replay value thrown in with the ability to go back and collect hidden items.'