The Geometry Wars franchise returns with Dimensions, the
third title in the series and its most polished yet. If you’ve played either of
its two predecessors you’ll be instantly familiar with its mechanics. Move with
one analogue stick, shoot with the other. Randomly spawning shapes populate the
screen with their own characteristics. Blue diamonds will hunt you down, purple
stars aimlessly wander and the green square gang will dodge your bullets and
cause you no end of trouble. It’s a case of score big or go home and this
simplistic gameplay brought Geometry Wars kicking and screaming out of minigame
humdrum and into stand-alone glory. Lucid Games have done a wonderful job of
keeping the original title’s feel while adding their own spin. Job well done
for a developer that, to be completely blunt, hasn’t done much else prior to
this.
The adventure mode consists of 50 levels including bosses.
There’s enough variety to keep you coming back for more yet it struggles with
its own difficulty curve. The levels are cleared easily enough but if you’re
aiming for a 3 star score you’ll be looking at carrying out a perfect run. Even
for a seasoned veteran isn’t necessarily the most easy or guaranteed achievement.
This wouldn’t be a problem if the levels unlocked following a win of the
previous level, there’s blockages. You’ll need 16 stars to face the 2nd
boss on level 10. That’s 7 levels out of 9 requiring 2 stars. On paper sounds
easy enough, in game, not so much. Lets face it, I really don’t want to be
forced to go back into a level I’ve beaten 5 minutes ago to try and squeeze out
those extra few thousand points to be given access to this boss. Its more
frustrating than fun and albeit a nod to its arcade roots, seems like a stinky
method of extending the adventure mode.
Its online mode does have some nice mechanics. The Stock
mode is a tug-of-war style of game where you and the opposing team attempt to
kill a boss the quickest. It can add a frenetic feeling knowing that the other
team has almost killed their boss at the same time as yours. It feels almost
like a fighting game where you and your opponent are on extremely low health
and somehow managing to sneak in that low jab for the win. I did find it
reasonably difficult to find a game online as I assume there’s not a tremendous
playerbase for the online mode, however, pick this up with a few friends and
I’m pretty sure you’ll have a fair few hours of fun with the online modes.
Local Co-op also adds another mode which is in effect the
adventure mode but with you and a partner. It unfortunately suffers from the
same flaws as the adventure mode does, and having two players on the screen at
any one time can cause what can sometimes be a particle effect hell when
playing solo, into a Michael Bay film. What I would have loved to see would be
some split screen player vs player of which there is none. It’s not a massive
complaint, but would have been a nicer addition than the co-op mode.
Geometry Wars Dimensions, isn’t Game of the Year material,
but it isn’t bargain bin fodder either. Its one of those titles that I strongly
suggest picking up in a sale or as part of a bundle. It has all the makings of
a solid game, yet is let down by some minor problems but I still feel that
Lucid Games should be given a pat on the back for driving Geometry Wars into
new territory. Dimensions is better than the first two titles, but there’s not
much evolution left for a game that was already Retro Evolved when it was
initially released.