Velocibox Review - Screenshot 1 of 2

Often video games are formed from many different ideas, complex puzzles, and imaginitive wonders. Velocibox, a PlayStation 4 and Vita cross-buy title, replaces all of this with very simplistic gameplay which, although straightforward in theory, actually presents one of the sternest challenges that we've experienced in quite some time.

You're tasked with navigating a cube through an onslaught of coloured obstacles, using the analogue stick to move left and right. Alternatively, you can flip the arena completely on its head with a swift tap of the X button; this presents you with another view of the oncoming blockades.

The game is very fast-paced, with death occurring at the slightest touch of a coloured block, therefore it's required that you learn from every mistake that you make in order to succeed. Each level presents a varying amount of patterned obstacles, and the game then alternates between these so that each time you play it's different. And if that's not hard enough, along the way you'll also encounter small circles to collect, which are placed in the most precarious of places. To complete a level and progress to the next, six of these small cylinders must be collected. Nab them all, and you'll be thrown straight into the next level with no pause for breath.

Velocibox Review - Screenshot 2 of 2

The game's difficulty is its main downside, as it verges on impossible; it took us hundreds of attempts just to pass the first level, and then a couple of hundred more for the following stage. We're not terrible gamers by any stretch and have a lot of experience with similar titles, but this outing is so ridiculously difficult that we only managed to reach level three before we were forced to give up. We enjoy a bit of challenge in our titles, but this is too much.

That's not to say that it's a terrible game – it's actually rather addictive at times. But the difficulty is so impenetrable that your desire to give it just 'one more go' will dissipate eventually – especially if you've been banging your head against the wall for literally hours on end. There are online leaderboards to encourage you to grit your teeth through the challenge, but these will primarily serve to underline your utter incompetence.

Conclusion

Velocibox is simple and addictive, but it's just too darn difficult most of the time. This release demands such precision that we weren't able to see as much of it as we'd have liked – despite our absolute best efforts. With a fairer difficulty curve this could have been a decent timewaster; instead, we'd recommend it to masochists only.