Format: 360 Publisher: Microsoft Developer: Bizarre Creations
Simplicity can be a wonderful thing, leading to complex and beautiful results. Consider the Mandelbrot Set, or Conway’s Game of Life – mathematical constructs that evolve from a handful of equations. Or then there’s the tiny collection of nucleobases that combine to form DNA, the basis of every living thing on the planet. And then there’s Geometry Wars.
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved isn’t so much designed as constructed from a few rules: things appear that kill you, and as time goes on there are more of them. That’s about all there is to it; by the time you’ve managed to score half a million you’re well acquainted with absolutely everything the game has to throw at you.
It’s adorably simple, and yet it leads to astonishingly complex results that make the most hardcore bullet-hell shooters look rather quaint and pedestrian by comparison. The concept of simply throwing in random waves consisting of more and more of everything as you progress, instead of adhering to anything so old-fashioned as a design document or level structure, is gonzo game design at its most audacious. It shouldn’t work, but like the Mandelbrot Set and organic life, it does, and if you put in the hours it rewards you with some of the most exhilarating seat-of-your-pants gaming in existence. You even begin to suspect that some of those insane Achievements – Pacifism has to be one of the best ever to hit Live Arcade – are actually manageable and not put there simply to taunt the unwary player.
It doesn’t quite seem that way at first, though. Indeed, it’s easy to dismiss it as an analogue Robotron with tripped-out visuals and no one to save. Wrong. That you move with one stick and fire with the other is about all that the two have in common; beyond that they go off in their own very separate ways. Robotron’s a game for playing standing up; Geometry Wars is a game for playing sitting back on a comfortable sofa.
There’s no shortage of contemporary updates to Robotron, but few games do it with this sort of flair.
Because although once it really gets going it tends to resemble a top-down Dead Rising, speeded up about 20 times and reinterpreted by Douglas Trumbull, it’s one of those games that requires you to be in a relaxed, almost detached, state. It doesn’t lend itself to the stick-gripping, jaw-clenching madness of Robotron; there’s no need for that frantic two-second scan of the lay of the land at the beginning of every wave. Partly, of course, because there aren’t any waves; just an endless onslaught that at first has you bemoaning such a colossal design oversight but which ultimately adds to the game’s appeal, letting you settle into the flow without interruption and helping you on towards higher scores.
It’s a simple closed system – albeit one that soon becomes terrifyingly complex to the casual observer. Its basic geometric enemies come handily ZX Spectrum colour-coded so that you’re not forced to keep track of absolutely everything; just keep registering the colours and behave accordingly, putting a bit of wiggle into your aim to take care of those green squares whose bullet-dodging antics seem so terribly unsporting. Success at Geometry Wars is a matter of keeping your nerve and holding on to your smart bombs until you absolutely, positively need them.
Another great aspect of the game’s open-ended design is that smart bombs are intrinsically more valuable than extra lives; you get an extra life every 75,000 points, but you only get a new smart bomb every 100,000. Which means that there are situations – specifically when you’ve just respawned and your multiplier’s low to non-existent – where it’s better to lose a life than waste a smart bomb. Take it on the chin – you’ll be a better person for it.
Not to mention that by holding your smart bombs in, even when you’re at the centre of what looks like a pulsating mass of interstellar hatred, you’re building up the skills and making your way to the sort of scores that at first seemed laughably impossible. And by doing that you’re opening yourself up to one of those feelings of true gaming nirvana, when the screen’s thick with enemies coming at you from every direction and yet you’re still blasting a path through them and clinging on to existence by the tiniest possible margin. Using the smart bomb in such a situation feels, frankly, like letting the side down. It almost becomes a matter of artistry and pride in your work. It’s that sort of game.
Geometry Wars is the bumble bee of gaming. On paper it really shouldn’t fly; in reality it soars magnificently and seems eternally capable of taking you to greater heights. Cherish it.
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