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Geometry Wars Galaxies review
Videogames > Platforms > DS > Geometry Wars Galaxies review Rated 7 out of 10 By Gamesweasel on January 25, 2008
If you like your shoot 'em ups then listen up because I may have a game for you. It's Geometry Wars: Galaxies on the Nintendo DS and it's a hectic bit of fun to say the least. The game's called Geometry wars because you are a little Geometric shape flying round an arena in spce being chased by lots of other geometric shapes that want to bump into you and blow you up. It's like a mathematician's bad trip.
You may have played a version of this game on Xbox Live arcade called Geometry Wars Retro Evolved where the aim of the game was to get the highest score possible as wave after wave of shapes attack you. You could also play that multiplayer and you can with this too as retro Evolved is also included here.
Galaxies gives you in essence a single player campaign, with a spiral galaxy to play through, each with a number of areas within. The aim is to keep shooting and surviving long enough to get a gold medal. Get any kind of medal and you unlock new areas to play through.
On the 360 you moved with the left stick and shot with the right stick indepently of where you are moving. Think Smash TV but in space and without men with bombs strapped to their backs. On the DS this translates well as you steer your ship with the d-pad and shoot by draggin the stylus where you want to fire on the touch screen.
As you'd expect the funky backgrounds from the 360 game are missing but the DS game still looks pretty in its own right, even if there's noticeable slowdown when there's too much on screen at once.
This game also opens up fantastically when you connect via sharing a game card – thanky you for doing that Sierra – or using Wi-Fi. In Galaxies you can play co-op, simultaneous or versus games. The latter being taking it in turns to survive whilst the other launches attacks at you, a similar game mechanic to Phantom Hourglass which also worked very well. Retro Evolved thankfully has leaderboards online you can add your name to so all that time making your eyes go funny on the bus isn't wasted.
If you like simple shooters which make you keep coming back for me, this may just be for you. If you want depth, storytelling and plot development, I think you'd better go look elsewhere.
Geometry Wars for the DS gets a very good 7 out of 10.
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