Developer: Lucid Games
Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
Genre: Shooter
Players: 1-4
Console: PC (reviewed), Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4
Hours Played: ~5.5 hours
Progress: Completed about 40% of the Single Player and Co-Op Adventure modes. Played a smattering of Arcade and the other sundry modes.
It’s been six years since the official second entry in the Geometry Wars series and an unfortunate three since the series’ original developer, Bizarre Creations, was dissolved by Activision. Lucid Games was luckily formed out of some of the more essential pieces of Bizarre Creations after it was blown out of the water, but as their own entity they are relatively untested having only developed a few more simple iOS-centric games since their formation. Was Lucid Games up to the task of making a brand new main-series Geometry Wars? Read on to find out if Geometry Wars 3 parallels the greatness of its predecessors.
The first thing I noticed with Geometry Wars 3 (GW3) was unfortunately that it has some performance issues on PC that have still yet to be patched. Luckily enough a fix for most performance issues with the game is to run it in Borderless Windowed mode instead of Fullscreen, but the fact that not being able to run the game in Fullscreen mode on PC wasn’t caught before release calls the competency of the entire production into question. It’s a good thing that the answer to that question is that the PC issue in certain modes is basically the only detractor from the GW3 experience.
When it’s all configured properly, the graphics and music in GW3 are as good as they have ever been in the Geometry Wars series. The switch to three dimensional enemies (and sometimes environments) was a necessary and well-executed decision and aside from the occasional threat of dizziness when playing on the more wavy 3D levels, works well and is just as responsive and tight as we’ve come to expect.
Gameplay-wise there is not a whole lot new in GW3 apart from the 3D levels, but there are only so many enemy behaviour patterns and gimmicks you can throw in before you start compromising the series’ rock solid mechanics. What there is of GW3 remains steadfastly true to the fun of the series and includes all of the gameplay expanding features introduced in previous series entries including the score multiplying geoms that defeated enemies scatter and upgradeable companion drones that assist the player in various ways by collecting geoms or attacking enemies in various ways. The only flaw in the otherwise impenetrable armour of GW3’s gameplay is something that most of the series’ games struggle with — difficulty balancing. Level progression becomes frustrating at random times throughout the adventure modes blocking the player’s access to additional levels until certain arbitrarily high scores or feats are completed in the preceding levels. Forced replaying like this is artless at the best of times in any game and it’s a disappointing to see it return along with all of the good aspects of the series.
All of the crowd favourite game modes remain intact in GW3 including the classic arcade mode, pacifism (where you can’t move), and king (where you can only fire from certain changing safe zones on the map) in addition to new modes like claustrophobia (where the playable area shrinks as time progresses). The ten available modes keep things fresh in adventure mode and the multiplayer modes with up to four players make for a good amount of content for the $15 price tag.
Overall, the transition to 3D was just the thing that the Geometry Wars series needed to stay fresh, entertaining, and relevant. Lucid Games can be proud of the great product they put out (particularly once they fix the performance issues in the PC version) as it is a worthy next step and perfectly maintains the fun and technicality that the series is respected for.
[taq_review]
A review code for the game was provided to us by its publishers.