It’s been a long wait for a new Geometry Wars game; almost six years has passed since the psychedelic polygon blaster and former darling of Xbox Live Arcade last graced our screens. It’s been so long, that the original studio and Project Gotham creators Bizarre Creations, was shut down in 2011 – four years after releasing Retro Evolved 2. But out of those ashes rose Lucid Games, one of five separate companies formed by ex-Bizarre staff. Along with the similarly resurrected Sierra Entertainment, they’ve finally brought us a fresh slice of unusually shaped bullet hell. With such a long time to come up with new ideas and a powerful new console to work with, expectations are high, but how does the game SHAPE up?
For those that don’t know, Geometry Wars is basically an old-school shoot ’em up, kind of a cross-between Asteroids and a bullet hell game. You fly round a digital grid trying to shoot enemies that are all different basic shapes, like circles and squares, while trying to avoid getting rammed by these geometric bad guys. The controls have always been simple and responsive, a straight-forward twin-stick affair with just a couple of other buttons used for special abilities. It’s a simple game from an older time, but it’s also a pure gaming experience that both new and old gamers can enjoy. This latest entry is no different in any of those respects, but there are a number of changes that the new developers have introduced.
The main addition to Dimensions is the new three-dimensional level designs. Rather than the traditional flat arena from the old games, Dimensions throws the player into even more chaotic and unpredictable environments that take the form of spheres, mazes, curvy wobbly things, and all manner of other objects. That’s right, even the levels themselves are now different shapes too. The sphere is the easiest to explain: it’s basically a tiny planet that you fly round as enemies pop into existence all in pre-programmed sequences. The way you play is pretty much the same as before, the level is just wrapped around a ball. It’s pretty slick, as your bullets curve round the planet hitting enemies on the other side.
There are a number of pros and cons that come with a change like this. Levels like the sphere have no edges like the traditional map for obvious reasons, which makes for some cool visuals as you zip round the planetoid without ever stopping, but it does mean you are constantly surrounded and liable to run into enemies you never even saw spawn. The unusual shapes also present opportunities for tactics that never existed before. On some levels, there are essentially ‘choke points’ where certain kinds of players might want to focus their fire. These points appear either in the form of narrow passages on maze-like levels, where enemies flow in and allow for a turkey shoot, or as tight spawn areas where a group of enemies will criss-cross each other and allow for huge combos.
Not all the levels are very interesting, unfortunately. Some of the levels are just the normal, flat arena, except slightly curved like one of those new-fangled TVs. Levels like these don’t really seem to have any effect on gameplay, which is disappointing considering the novelty of the more unusual levels, such as the sausage-shaped level. Most bizarrely of all, these new level designs are only playable in the new Adventure mode, and are not selectable until they’ve been unlocked.
The Adventure mode is a linear campaign of sorts, with fifty levels of increasing difficulty that must be unlocked in sequential order. Each level is a different mode and rewards the player with one, two or three stars depending on how many points were scored. Later levels require a minimum number of stars to have been unlocked before being playable, a fact which may prove frustrating to some players due to the high difficulty of getting three or even two stars on most levels.
Adding to the difficulty is the addition of bosses, which appear every ten levels and test the player’s skills in unusual ways. The first boss, for instance, is an invincible behemoth that chases you around the level as waves of enemies spawn from within it. Geometry Wars is of course an homage to another era of gaming, hence the original Retro Evolved subtitle, but while the gameplay feels evolved, these bosses feel like little more than an uninspired relic borrowed from ancestors that used the concept better.
A better addition than bosses are drones and upgrades, which can be unlocked through the Adventure mode. Drones fly next to your “ship” and help you in different ways. Attack drones fire at enemies, while others do similarly self-descriptive actions including defend, collect, ram and snipe. There’s also special abilities for yourself such as the miner ability, which lays mines around the level as you move. The other abilities include homing, clone, black hole and turret. All the drones and abilities can be upgraded using in-game currency (thankfully not microtransactions) and made even more efficient as you progress through the game.
Unfortunately, some of the abilities don’t unlock until you have a ridiculous number of stars earned from levels. The clone ability won’t unlock until you have 110 stars – that’s more than 2 stars on every level! This means that most players will never get to use some abilities, either due to them being unable to earn enough stars or because they already beat the game and see no reason to keep playing. Those that persevere will need to play through levels several times in order to get enough points to upgrade everything, so choosing a strategy and a combination of drones that works for you is important.
When the Adventure mode has either been completed or abandoned due to hitting a brick wall, there are plenty of other modes to enjoy. Old favourites return; Deadline, Evolved, King & Pacifism, while there’s also new modes including Titan, where you have to break down giant shapes into smaller pieces before being able to destroy them completely. If all this talk of single player modes sounds a bit lonely for you, there’s also both local co-op and online multiplayer.
The local co-op mode is similar to the Adventure mode, with a linear set of levels and challenges, albeit without any of the new 3D grids. The online mode is quite different, allowing you go head-to-head against opponents and earn power-ups that disrupt their game. While the multiplayer works well, the co-op is far too hard. Most people live with family, children and spouses rather than seasoned twitch-reflex gamers. There’s no difficulty settings or handicaps, so the mode is useless if you want to play with a partner who’s used to more sedate games. It’s a nice mode to have, but as with the single player, the difficulty causes a lot of frustration and disappointment.
With the new Adventure mode and all these other ways to play, there’s plenty here to keep players hooked for a decent amount of time. The new gimmick of 3D levels is neat, but it’s not the pure retro experience that made the series popular in the first place. Even then, it’s limited to the Adventure mode, which itself is probably too hard to progress through without immense frustration for some players. The bosses don’t add much, but the drones and abilities have the potential to add some strategy into a game that was previously all about reflexes. For those that want to avoid the new stuff, all the old modes are still available. Multiplayer and co-op are nice additions too, even if the co-op is also pretty demanding.
Overall then, it’s a bigger package than what we’ve had before. Even though the new additions are hit and miss, there’s always something else to try, so it’s hard to complain. For new fans the 3D levels will be an exciting change, while for purists, the traditional Geometry Wars experience still exists just one menu option away. It’s a retro game, but it’s one that continues to evolve.
Reviewed using a retail copy provided by the publisher. Played about half the Adventure mode, several games of all the other modes.
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Dean Balloch contributed 12 articles to ICXM between 2014–2015, covering game reviews, and Xbox news with a focus on hands-on impressions and verified-source reporting. Their bylines on the site span the Xbox One’s first full year of post-launch coverage, including the early days of Backwards Compatibility and Windows 10 gaming. They post on X as @SpookyWomble.