Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions

[spadgy]

Firstly, quick public apology for my forum absence of late; moved house, weddings far away, work trips abroad. Back now! Will update those leader boards etc. ASAP!

On the note of being away, today at Gamescom I got some hands-off demo time with Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, and chatted briefly with the dev team Lucid Games (ex-Bizzare, ex-Sony etc). Seemed a really nice lot. Certainly knew the genre.

It's main hook? It takes the arena series into the spherical/cylinder scrolling wrap-around shmup sub-genre. Some of the 50 levels remain flat 2D arenas, but many (most?) are akin to those in Stardust, but actually close to Nano Assualt Neo's levels, in that they are not all spheres. Seems it does enough distinct though.

There's online competitive multiplayer, local co-op play (and presumably verses), and a tonnes of leaderboard options.

It introduces options (called 'drones' in this case), and each can be augmented with temporary special abilities ('supers'). Think of them as button activated bomb-like abilities for options. You can craft/select drones to prioritise harvesting 'geom' pick-ups, attacking, etc. there are also standard smart bombs.

The scoring is combo based, and from what the dev told me, nothing makes combo drop; not even dying. I understand it climbs as standard for the series (?); by picking up geoms. This time, however, the variety of geom numbers dropped by enemies is more diverse.

One particularly cool level was a cube shape. How to see enemies spawning on an obscured surface of the cube? Faint trails of light move through the air around the level's mass, disappearing out of site to where the enemie will spawn (like a comet falling to a planet's surface), giving a clue to where obscured enemies are spawning. Seemed to work nicely.

Before you play single-player you are presented immediately with a 'rival' score. You rival is your online friend with the closest score to your current best on a given level. I think I remember correctly that the rival score displayed throughout the level too.

More new features are TBA.

It's published by the newly relaunched Sierra (yes! That Sierra). Sierra is now Activision's indie-focused label. Lucid spoke highly of the support.

That's it for now! I'm certainly more of a scrolling than arena fan, but I liked what I saw.

[BrianC]

Thanks for the info. I was skeptical when I first heard a new Geometry Wars was coming (I thought it would be the same team that did the mobile ports that was made up of ex-Kuju menbers), but this sounds very promising.

[Icarus]

Just saw a retweet about this: http://www.gamespark.jp/article/2014/08/15/50844.html



Looks both nice and disorientating at the same time.

[Pretas]

Someone definitely played Nano Assault.

[Special World]

really hope they keep up with the great alternate modes

cannot live without pacifism

[professor ganson]

I hope it comes with a Project Gotham Racing game.

[brokenhalo]

cannot live without pacifism

Good lord you aren't kidding. Seriously one of the most addicting games ever.

[spadgy]

I hope it comes with a Project Gotham Racing game.

Ha! I like that. That would actually be fantastically cool.

I'm not actually a tremendous series fan, but this certainly looks like I'll have some fun with it.

[A7A]

Sure Nano Assault, but also Super Stardust!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Stardust_HD

[Lord Satori]

Sure Nano Assault, but also Super Stardust!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Stardust_HD

That's what I thought of when I saw that screen. They couldn't have made it a little more... unique?

[antares]

XBox One or on what platform will this come out?

[GSK]

XBox One or on what platform will this come out?

X360/Xbone, PS3/4, PC.

[Kobayashi]

XBox One or on what platform will this come out?

X360/Xbone, PS3/4, PC.

Great news! I really like the Geometry Wars Series.

Speaking in this series, I think Geometry Wars Galaxies (for Nintendo Wii) is underrated by many players, maybe because when played with the Wii Remote the gameplay is inaccurate, but when played with Classic Controller the gameplay is great.

[Jeneki]

Nice. So this one is going to be level-based, like Geometry Wars Galaxies?

[spadgy]

Nice. So this one is going to be level-based, like Geometry Wars Galaxies?

From what I saw in the hands-off demo, the develop could hop through the levels one-by-one (as opposed to it being a '1CC-able' type of structure). It was certainly a developer/early build, but as there's 50 stages (possibly more) it will likely remain level-based.

[MR_Soren]

Sounds great, thanks for the report!

[Icarus]

Watch as a UFO-catcher-shaped ship navigates a giant floating peanut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcDwloSSBeM
There's also an overwhelming feeling of style over substance.

[Pretas]

There's also an overwhelming feeling of style over substance.

Sadly, this sentence applies to the majority of Western STGs made in the past several years.

[trap15]

There's also an overwhelming feeling of style over substance.

Sadly, this sentence applies to the majority of Western STGs.

FTFY

[Pretas]

The original Geometry Wars definitely emphasized substance over style, it's just that there wasn't much of either to be found.

[Squire Grooktook]

I've only played Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved.

Solid game, but I honestly think Robotron is a better game (enemies have more strategic variety and stronger gameplay design, rescuing family members adds risk/reward elements, etc.)

[Special World]

There are a lot of incredibly crappy Western-made shooters, but this disregard for Geometry Wars is killing me. Geo Wars 1 and 2 are *incredible*. A lot of the times Western shooters just don't get it, but those two games do, probably precisely because they come from a Western heritage.

And no style or substance? I don't know what eyes you have, but I don't want them.

[Legendary Hoamaru]

This game comes out tomorrow.

I heard they adjusted and added a lot of stuff after getting feedback from their last showing. One big news was all of the modes from Geometry Wars 2 coming back (with 10 battle modes total) and Online Multiplayer.

[Special World]

Oh shit, tomorrow? Well damn. I've got too much game right now. Hope it's good.

[KidQuaalude]

I thought it looked pretty crap compared to Geometry Wars Galaxies on the Wii (one of the best shmups on the system imo) - I dont think the move to 3D levels necessarily works for this game. I'm willing to give it a shot based o the quality of the previous GW games though.

[kid aphex]

I played GW2 intensely... specifically, Pacifism mode... and I was incredibly skeptical of this game when it was announced.

Initially, the main changes that the developers were touting seemed superfluous at best, and distracting at worst.
The 3-Dimensional geometry of the levels felt like a shallow gimmick, and the visual overhaul seemed a bit excessive.

But after having played the game for a few hours? I'm really enjoying it.

It doesn't maintain the level of "purity of action" found in GW2 --- but honestly, could ANY OTHER GAME EVER HOPE TO DO SO?
GW2 might be one of the most PERFECTLY DESIGNED shooters ever created ...

The 3-Dimensional geometry of the levels actually offers quite a bit more depth-of-play. When going for high-scores in timed modes, "Navigation" (ie, finding the quickest route across the surface of object-levels) actually develops into an interesting gameplay variable. Using terrain to kite and funnel enemies also adds a decent amount of spatial strategy to the game's systems.

The visuals aren't nearly as annoying as I initially perceived them to be. There's still an incredibly thorough aesthetic consistency to the game that makes it's artistic choices difficult to hate, even if they continue to stray further and further from the simplistic, vector-style graphics they became known for.

And the music is actually really amazing.

There are a few minor design missteps, but they have to do mostly with navigating menus and the flow of the game modes.
(For example, re-starting a level is nowhere near as fast a process as GW2. Whether you've died, or are seeking to restart through the menu system the process just takes a few seconds too long, and makes playing for high-score a bit of a drag when compared to the almost non-existent Play-Die-Restart cycle of GW2)

[Cata]

Already in love with this game

[Iron Peach]

Goan get it once it hits the 360 sale page.

[Doctor Butler]

It's out, but there's no demo, and I don't want to go in blind. I had one of the previous installments, and it was kind of 'meh'.

Besides, SYNSO 2 is the best arena-shooter, anyway.

[professor ganson]

I still somehow think of GWs as games for my XBoxes, so it's strange to have the choice to download it on PS4. I think that might be the best choice because I love that controller.