Pong and Beyond

508th played so far

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2003
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Some games seem to start small and grow big almost by standing out from where it came from. Geometry Wars wasn’t released on its own, it was a minigame in Project Gotham Racing 2. The sequel to that, which we’ll play later, also contained an updated version of this game.

Geometry Wars itself is a simple-looking twin stick shooter. Just another one to try.

Our Thoughts

It’s interesting how Geometry Wars and Robotron 2084 are similar at their most basic. Twin stick shooters in a limited arena, where you have to shoot the enemies who approach you, with room limited to (slightly more than) a single screen. And if you told me Geometry Wars was an update of an old arcade game, with basic character designs (usually resembling vector graphics) with loads of neon colours and a bunch of fireworks added on each piece of success.

It doesn’t make for the most innovative gameplay, but instead the stripped back, streamlined gameplay emphasizes what you’re doing, with the graphical changes being extraneous in a way that adds to it – they’re not important, so you have more of a reason to enjoy them.

At the same it’s the idea of a simple concept aided by simple mechanics interacting – as eenmies do affect each other, a black hole that sucks everything in is bad for you, butg also clears enemies. The book lists Robotron, again, as an original example, and it seems quite lucky we played one after the other.

Final Thoughts

I’m not sure this is a game I’d play a lot of in a single sitting. It’s a minigame, set up for it, and plays well in shorter, arcade game bursts. Great fun to play with for that time though, and there’s nothing wrong with having these shorter experiences – anything drawn out would have ruined the experience.