It’s hard to believe the last Geometry Wars came out almost seven years ago, but I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising since Activision shut down the studio behind its development, Bizarre Creations. So, in many respects, Geometry Wars 3 is a rebirth, for the series, for its developer Lucid Games–which is made of former Bizarre Creations staff–and for its publisher, the recently resurrected Sierra. On all three fronts, this game is a smashing success.

Geometry Wars 3 picks up where Retro Evolved 2 left us twitching our analog sticks back in 2008. The core twin-stick shooting remains the same: enemies of varying shape, color, and movement pattern flood the screen at an ever-increasing rate while you, at the controls of a claw-shaped ship, tilt the left analog stick to move and the right stick to aim and blast away in one fluid motion. (For PC players without a gamepad, the game plays just fine with WASD and arrow keys as the “sticks.” Or you can use WASD in tandem with a mouse for cursor-based aiming and shooting.)

As enemies explode in a fireworks display of neon geometric gore, green collectibles called geoms are left behind to obsessively harvest like a hero looting so many gold coins from treasure chests and broken crates in an action-RPG. Collect them carefully and collect them fast, though, because the quick-to-vanish geoms are the only way to increase the score multiplier. Having to decide in the heat of the moment when it is the right time to dash into a crowd for a few extra geoms or when it’s best to play it safe hits exactly the right balance of risk/reward skill that makes coming back to boost your high score an addiction that’s almost impossible to kick once you get a taste.

The new and old elements are segregated into two modes. All of the game’s newfangled stuff is on full display in Adventure mode, a lengthy single-player progression through 50 stages which consist of a broad range of map layouts and mission objectives. Much of Adventure mode does consist of the classic Deadline and Evolved match types, but many new variants do make an appearance. Checkpoint, for example, involves clearing waves of enemies to extend a countdown timer. Successfully destroying a full wave adds more time, but if you die the wave ends and precious seconds are lost as the next wave spawns.

Other mission types include Titans, in which larger enemy shapes gradually break down and multiply into swarms of smaller enemies as they are peppered with bullets; Rainbow, in which Roomba-like painter machines have to be destroyed before they can paint over the blank space of the map grid; Sniper, in which you are strapped with an ammo limit and literally have to make every shot count; and Claustrophobia, in which the arena walls steadily begin to close in and cause the play area to become increasingly crowded. Occasional boss battles further diversify the mission offerings.

Geometry Wars 3 gets its Dimensions subtitle mainly from the introduction of three-dimensional arena grids. Stealing a page from the book of Super Stardust and then rewriting it completely, the maps now consist of different shapes as well as 3D surfaces that have you piloting the ship on all sides of a cube, globe, cylinder, dome, pill-shaped objects, or a sort of warped rectangular surface. This adds a new dimension of challenge and play strategy to the unchanged core mechanics as you now have to take into account enemies that might be charging in from a side of the map that you cannot see and adjust your movements accordingly. Some levels also have shifting walls or barriers which present a different set of advantages and disadvantages to consider. Positioned correctly, a small barrier can serve as a temporary cover point from enemies that might be coming in from behind. However, if you aren’t careful it’s easy to get boxed into a corner or up against a wall without an escape route.

Also new to Adventure mode are unlockable and upgradeable ship loadouts. Before starting a level, you can choose a loadout of one helper drone and one super attack, each of which are available in five types. Drones are kind of like the upgrades you can earn in a shmup that add an extra ship that flies around and attacks autonomously, only the drones in this game can serve as geom harvesters in addition to offering unique firing capabilities for both offensive and defensive benefits. Super attacks, on the other hand, join the screen-clearing bombs as alternate limited-use weapons of mass destruction, from homing missile barrages to black holes to multi-directional turrets. You can make it through the adventure relying on a favorite loadout that suits your play style and skill level, but to maximize high score output it becomes important to mix and match different drones and supers to suit the layout and parameters of each stage.

Expanding upon the risk/reward factor, new power-ups called Super States appear exclusively during Adventure mode play. Over the course of a level, stationary dot clusters spawn into the field of play and, if you destroy the mass before it disappears you earn a temporary power-up, such as a rapid fire spread shot, a magnet that automatically sucks in all geoms, or a shield. Similar to collecting geoms, there are times when it may be better to let a Super State opportunity expire rather than risk having enemies swarm in while your attention is focused on shooting something that’s non-hostile, because death results in the immediate loss of any active power. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say non-hostile, because the Super State dots are solid objects that the ship is capable of crashing into.

For all its expansive content and variety, Adventure mode does start out as a bit of a grind. Each stage has three scoring tiers for earning one to three stars, and progressing along the level selection map requires earning enough stars to advance. Unless you are a Geometry Wars whiz pulling off two- and three-star performances right out of the gate, you will likely hit barriers to advancement where it will be necessary to return to previous stages to pick up an extra star or two to open the next level. Not that you should really dread having to replay past stages, because that’s part of the Geometry Wars hook to begin with. Drone and super choice is also limited in the beginning until enough stars and geom currency are accumulated to pay for unlocks and upgrades, so this game does make you do a little work to experience all that it has to offer.

For veterans of previous Geometry Wars, Lucid has not tampered with the purity of the classic modes. If you prefer gunning for piles of points on flat, rectangular grids in the traditional Deadline (unlimited lives to score points within a time limit), Evolved (3 lives to score as many points as possible), King (guns only fire when the ship is inside of a force field bubble), Pacifism (score by going through slalom gates to trigger explosions), and Waves (single life wave survival) modes, without any of the extra bells and whistles offered in Adventure mode, you are free to do so.

Online learderboards are synched in with every level across Classic and Adventure modes, so there’s always a better score out there to aim for. Multiplayer is available in the form of 10 co-op stages as well as a pair of competitive team-based match types; however, the co-op is local only, and no one ever seems to play the online-enabled team modes. (I haven’t had any luck finding even a single online session playing on Steam, but perhaps there is more of a player base on PSN or Xbox Live in the console versions.)

The twin-stick shooter genre has evolved a lot over the last half a dozen years, so after such a long hiatus Geometry Wars had some catching up to do in order to return to relevancy in a strong way. It has caught up, and then some. Geometry Wars 3 strikes a dead-on balance of remaining true to its roots while expanding to give today’s gamers the robust set of modernized features and mechanics they expect. Played classically or with all of its new age upgrades, Geometry Wars 3 is a high score arcade shoot-’em-up of unrivaled refinement, addictive allure, and chaotic fun.

Pros:
+ Core gameplay is as addictive and frenetic as ever
+ Modern advancements like 3D grids and upgradable loadouts bring a new dimension to shooting shapes
+ Classic modes remain for old-schoolers

Cons:
– Barriers to advancement make Adventure mode feel like a bit of a grind, especially early on
– Untapped multiplayer potential

Game Info:
Platform: Reviewed on PC, also available on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One
Publisher: Sierra
Developer: Lucid Games
Release Date: 11/25/2014
Genre: Twin-stick Shooter
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Players: 1 (plus offline co-op and online team-based multiplayer)
Source: Review code provided by publisher

Sierra’s resurrection is made official next week with the reborn publisher’s debut release, Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions. The digital download launch is scheduled for November 25th on PC, PS3 and PS4, and November 26th on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. All versions are priced at $14.99.

Geometry Wars 3 pre-orders are now live, offering bonus levels for each platform. Xbox One customers get the Torus shaped level Blood Count as well as the exclusive Titan Box level set on a cube shaped grid with a background of Xbox green (see screenshot directly above). Getting the game on PlayStation consoles comes with the level Secret Eye, “a unique triangle-shaped grid with an evolving cubed wall,” and the exclusive Symbolic level which contains enemies shaped like the face button icons on a DualShock controller (see screenshot directly below). Pre-ordering on Steam comes with both the Blood Count and Secret Eye levels.

The third numbered installment in the twin-stick shoot-’em-up series first created by Bizarre Creations was made by Lucid Games, a team founded by former developers at Bizarre Creations. At launch Geometry Wars 3 will offer a solo campaign with 50 stages set on the game’s new 3D level grids, as well as competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes.

Now get ready to have your mind blow by the official launch trailer. I am so ready to have Geometry Wars back in my life again. This game’s going to be a blast!

Matt: Even as an Xbox Live Arcade game, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved was widely considered one of the best launch titles for the Xbox 360. Given the 360’s sluggish start, it attained that status by default almost, but nevertheless, it was a gem of a game that showed from the outset that the XBLA was a force to be reckoned with.

Three years and numerous offshoots on other platforms later, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, the true sequel to the original XBLA smash-hit, has finally landed, and what can I say, it’s one brilliant game.

Geometry Wars 2 is an upgrade over the first game across the board. It has more modes, snazzier, trippier graphics, a fun new set of achievements, and gameplay that is even more challenging and addictive. Frankly, the only thing it’s missing is online play, which is a glaring omission but thankfully not a fatal one.

Zach: I remember when I first found an Xbox 360 back in December of 2005 and Geometry Wars was the only title I kept coming back to over that long drought between the first and second wave of 360 titles. I remember competing each night for high scores with my friends on Live.

While I didn’t get a chance to play any of the other Geometry Wars offshoots, this sequel is a great successor to the original. I love the five new modes of play as they offer a break to the original “Evolved” mode. It’s amazing that I was able to play the original so long now that I’ve had exposure to these new modes of play.

While online co-op doesn’t exist, local player Vs. and co-op do, and they’re great. Up to four people can play, either each piloting their own ship, or one person navigating and another shooting. This adds another dimension to an already fantastic game as it’s now a great title for a party. It’s simple to learn, but tough to master.

Another addition I love is seeing the ranks of your top five friends in each of the game’s six modes of play. This makes it easy to see if anyone has beaten your highest score and gives you something to immediately work towards where you might have missed it before.

While the price has shot up from 400 to 800 points when compared to the original, with all of the new play options available the price increase is well worth it.

Matt: The new modes are great indeed. Now there’s more than just moving and shooting. You’ve got modes like Pacifism where you don’t fire at all but pass through slalom gates floating around the arena in order to destroy chasing enemies, and King in which you move between little safety bubbles that offer protection from incoming enemies and unlock your weapon system so you can clear a path to the next bubble before the current bubble you’re hiding in decays. And Sequence mode, a treacherous series of 20 stages that you have to successfully complete all in a row. Each stage lasts only 30 seconds and repeats the exact same enemy spawn pattern every time, but damn is it brutal. I sure as hell haven’t been able to beat it yet. Closest I’ve come is the 18th stage, and I’ve tried it at least 50 times now. Now that’s tough!

Another thing I really like is the tweaked score multiplier system. Rather than simply building your multiplier by killing off enemies in succession, enemies now drop little green pellets called Geoms when they are destroyed that you have to collect to build up your multiplier. I think it’s a nifty little tweak. It adds an extra dimension of risk-and-reward strategy that you wouldn’t normally expect to find in an arcade shooter like this. While playing you are constantly confronted with the decision of “should I risk flying through that swarm of enemies to collect more pellets or play it safe and wait for a clearer moment to snatch ’em up?” You have to make that decision at a split second’s notice, too, because the game is so blazingly fast paced.

My lone beef with Geometry Wars 2 is the lack of online play. The local multiplayer is good, as you mentioned, but none of my gamer friends are really nearby any more so local multiplayer just isn’t something I’m able to get into that much, if at all. Not having the ability to play on Live is a big hit to the replay value for me. I’ve got the Sequence mode to continue plugging away at, but other than that I’ve played the game to its limits in a pretty short period of time. It literally took me only like an hour to unlock all the modes leading up to the Sequence and gain a majority of the achievements.

Lack of Live play aside, this truly is among the top handful of XBLA games to date. It’s both ultra addictive and punishingly difficult, and that’s a winning combination for a dual-stick shooter.

Zach: I can definitely see where you’re coming from, Matt. The only person I really have to play the local multiplayer with is my wife, who likes to watch the game more than play it. On the other hand, I’m not sure how well multiplayer over Xbox Live would have worked. This game requires split second timing, some might argue even more than fighting games. If you introduce just the smallest bit of lag, the game would almost be unplayable.

As for my thoughts on the game in whole, if you liked the original Geometry Wars, you’ll love this sequel. It simply takes the original and makes nothing but improvements upon it. Sure, there’s no multiplayer mode over Xbox Live, but there wasn’t in the original and if we’re comparing apples to apples, the inclusion of some local multiplayer is better than none at all. For $10 this makes a great addition to the Xbox Live Arcade family and a must have for anyone hankering to destroy brightly colored shapes.

Pros:
+ Six modes of play keep you coming back to raise your score
+ New Geom multiplier system introduces an added layer of strategy to wracking up high scores
+ Local multiplayer gets everyone involved in grabbing the highest score
+ Everything that made the original Geometry Wars great has been amped up another notch

Cons:
– Lack of online multiplayer can be disheartening for those of us without nearby gaming friends
– Looking at the overall leaderboard makes us feel like a Geometry Wars noobs

Game Info:
Platform: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Release Date: 7/30/08
Genre: Arcade Shooter
Players: 1-4 (local only, no online)

I am pleasantly surprised by the strong support both Microsoft and Sony have shown for their downloadable game platforms this E3. Microsoft in particular isn’t showing much in the way of quantity, but two of the Xbox Live Arcade exclusives it landed alone are more than enough to generate a lot of buzz and excitement. Those two titles being Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 and Galaga Legions, of course, one the sequel to the game that truly put the XBLA on the map and the other the first true sequel to a classic arcade game that took the world by storm over 20 years ago. Both titles should hopefully be out before summer’s end, but as far as I know no launch dates have been locked in as of yet.

After the break you’ll find screenshots and gameplay clips for both titles, do enjoy!

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2:
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Galaga Legions:
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