Q.U.B.E.

Q.U.B.E. is currently available on Steam for a dollar.  At that price I'd say it's worth it.  It is a shorter game though (maybe 3 hours to complete).

I liked the puzzles in this game even though it's a bit on the easier side of what I'm used to in first-person puzzle games.  There were a couple where it seemed like the solution had more to do with playing with the physics engine until it works just right rather than finding a solution with logic.

The story wasn't really that good.  The voice acting seemed alright but there wasn't really enough of it to really relate to the characters and the plot wasn't really very deep.  I don't know how much it really matters though as I don't really play these games for the story.

The visuals are actually pretty good especially considering it's mostly just a bunch of cubes (for the first half).  The second half gets a little more work from the artists and it probably has something to do with the way this game was developed.  Somebody built the concept with simple assets, then once the project got legs they put more work into it.

If you want to say the game is similar to Portal you'd be right.  The aesthetics are very similar and Portal is sort of the definitive game in it's genre.  The mechanics are different though and if you like puzzle games because you like puzzles as opposed to some weird fascination in cakes and companion cubes I don't see why this would really be a problem.  There are some neat puzzles in there and it costs a dollar.

8/10