Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure Review (Xbox One)

INTRODUCTION

Traveling around tropical islands and mountains has never been as fun as in this title. The 3D platformer Unbox: Newbie's Adventure introduces you to a very curious protagonist who must bounce through stages in order achieve its goals. In this adventure, you will be playing as a cardboard box that comes with several tricks to complete a different variety of tasks. One of the best characteristics of the game is that it lets you take advantage of full split-screen mode to have friends joining the journey.

The game structure is simple to understand and also very enjoyable. As your character travels around different worlds, it will have the change to collect a certain amount of items and prove it is ready to face the boss. Winning this ultimate battle will let you move on to the next world and complete new upcoming challenges.

Unbox: Newbie's Adventure was developed by Merge Games and is will be available for Xbox One on July 26th  for $29.99

STORY

I have to admit that I was very curious about the story behind Unbox, but was not expecting to find so much creativity in it. The idea of playing a game where you take control of boxes and travel around the world did not sound very promising at first but definitely stood out to me during the first minutes of play time.

The story begins right before the initial tutorial, where you can learn more about the entire adventure. You will be introduced to Newbie, a Postal Service box part of a delivery company called GPS. Due to a major bankruptcy threat, GPS creates one of the best options to save the business and continue its operations: a self-delivery system. Newbie is the top participant of this innovative project and is requested to travel through three different worlds as an alternative to test the efficiency of the new service. The journey is not as simple as it sounds, considering that you will encounter bad guys out there waiting for the best moment to ruin GPS’s plan. The villains of Unbox: Newbie's Adventure are a group of rebel boxes named Boss Wild and Wild Cards. They somehow decided to go rogue and will not let you advance until you defeat them in a battle.

Followed by the main story, there is a traditional tutorial that will let you become familiar with your surroundings and also learn how to control your character in a more efficient way. Don’t underestimate the power of a self-delivery box. Newbie has a lot of tricks to show and will not disappoint you with its jumping abilities. First, there are very simple tasks to complete, which are perfect to help you get familiar with the simple tasks that will show up as you move on. As you bounce around the GPS headquarters, you will learn that the boxes greatest weaknesses are water and explosives. Even though those two elements can instantly kill Newbie, there is not a limited amount of times that you can die. For every defeat, Newbie will quickly respawn at the closest available checkpoint.

In general, being part of a unique and creative story is what quickly caught my attention and drove my interest to continue playing Unbox. If you are looking for a simple tale with great 3D elements, it might be a good option to join GPS and its fantastic delivery method. This adventure allows you to not only meet several interesting characters but also defeat terrible villains while trying to reach your goals.

GAMEPLAY

Unbox is a fun game to play and comes with a set of easy controls that are very simple to get used to. Considering that you are taking control of a box, there is not much to expect in terms of movements. However, jumping is the key word to take you wherever you need to go. The secret behind the unique power of the boxes relies on the fact that they can literally “unbox” themselves, allowing characters to jump while leaving a smaller layer of cardboard behind.

Newbie and the other boxes are overall slow characters and have a very basic “body” structure, which can be strange in the beginning. The good thing about the environment in Unbox is that worlds are very well designed in terms of space. This type of design allows you to freely move around using the available commands with no major issues.

Challenges are not that hard and worlds don’t have a very dense structure. Because of that, it would not be surprising to find out that players can complete their journeys in a short period of time. That is not necessarily a negative characteristic, but can be disappointing if you are looking for a tougher challenge.

In general, your main goal is to collect different items found on each stage and take them back to a specific location upon instructions. It is a lot of fun to bounce around the worlds in search for stamps, but for the most part, the game is about it. Eventually, you will encounter different characters offering you to complete different types of challenges. For example, you can join a racing challenge that allows you to drive a car while trying to reach all available checkpoints until the finish line. Even though I personally really like racing games, driving a car as a box can feel sort of strange at some point.

Aside from completing the world challenges, you can also collect the stamps through other methods. These precious items can be found hidden in stages (which gives Unbox a higher level of difficulty), and also by defeating bosses. Even though winning a battle against other boxes and exploring stages are not hard, you may get lost for a few moments if you miss an important detail on instructions for challenges. The good news that in this adventure you can count with the constant narration from the boxes that are on your side. This handy game element helps you locate specific items or remind you where to go next.

In Unbox, each world has a unique look, but all of them have been designed with lots of colors and details. One of my favorite areas of the game is Parcel Peaks. Given that this is an ice world filled with beautiful mountains in a slippery atmosphere, Parcel Peaks allows boxes to move a little faster while sliding through the trails. If snow isn't your favorite environment, you may still enjoy the tropical and bright worlds that make up other important routes of the journey.

Finally, Unbox: Newbie's Adventure becomes even more interesting when playing in local multiplayer mode. Since repeating similar challenges by yourself can become tedious, the split screen option is a great way to have fun with friends.

AUDIO AND GRAPHICS

It is undeniable that Unbox: Newbie's Adventure is a colorful 3D title filled with great characters that make up a vibrant environment. First, it is important to highlight the fact that characters are customizable, which adds a lot of personality to the whole adventure. It is nice to play Unbox knowing that you can add the extra effort to make boxes look more appealing, instead of having the same boring appearance. Also, the cutscenes are incredibly charming and will definitely put a smile on your face at some point of the story.

I personally really enjoyed the game soundtrack and story background music while traveling through all worlds. In addition, there is a lot of personality on the characters’ “voices”, as they play important role in the journey. In addition, it is enjoyable to hear the general gameplay sounds such as collecting items and completing an exciting sequence of extra jumps in midair.

CONCLUSION

Overall, Unbox: Newbie's Adventure is a delightful 3D platformer that brings a decent amount of challenges distributed among a nice variety of beautiful worlds. Despite the mechanics’ limitations when taking control of a box throughout the entire adventure, Unbox’s journey is a lot of fun. The instructions are simple and easy to follow, which makes it enjoyable for players of all ages and experience levels. In general, this is a charming game that has been able to bring the retro style into a modern 3D title.