Geometry Wars 3:

Dimensions Evolved Review

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In Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved, you play as Lt. Humphrey, an ex-student who dropped out of high school after he failed his Maths exams. He had no future prospects in life until he volunteered for “Dimension Exploration”. He was then put into an experimental ship by some officials in suits, and sent through a portal into a new dimension: the second dimension. Now piloting a flat ship as a 2D image, he flew around empty space, looking for life. Before long he came across a cube, floating in space. He thought to himself, “Why is there a cube in the second dimension?” Feeling his rage against all things mathematic building up inside, he opened fire on the shape. It exploded in a shower of colour. Feeling triumphant, he continued his flight until he saw a bright speck in the distance. Upon further inspection, it wasn’t a bright speck of light as he first thought. It was a vast collection of colours and shapes, rushing at an alarming speed towards his ship. It turns out these shapes were sentient, and all wanted Humphrey dead. Eager to go out in a blaze of glory, he readied his ship’s weapons and prepared to fight for his life. And that’s the setup of Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved.

If it wasn’t clear, the previous passage is a product of my own noggin’, and a good example of why I shouldn’t be given a notepad and a pen, let alone a keyboard. Luckily for you I do have a keyboard, and so here we are. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved is a surprisingly fun and addictive little title. It doesn’t break any new ground for the genre, and it doesn’t provide any more than it promises, which is good old fashioned arcade shooter fun.

The basic objective here is to earn stars. You get them by attaining a high score, and each consecutive stage is unlocked after a certain score is achieved. This shoots the replay value through the roof, as different rewards are unlocked after earning a certain amount of stars. Those who are good at the game receive the rewards early, while incentive is provided for those who aren’t that good to put more effort in. There are different game modes, where each requires the player to do something different. Deadline has (you guessed it) a time limit in which you’re to earn the points required to move onto the next level. Evolved gives the player a certain amount of lives to reach the goal needed to advance. Boss levels require no explanation – just kill the boss to move on. Checkpoint requires the player to clear out waves of enemies. Each wave killed adds more time to the clock, which is continually ticking down. The final mode I played was Titan, which is the classic Asteroids gameplay everyone knows and loves: shoot big things to make smaller things, but don’t get swarmed. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved offers a range of spins on the formula, all of which are quite enjoyable.

The soundtrack is, in a word, great. The synth feel, which gives off an electro vibe, wouldn’t stick out too much in the psychotic experience such as Hotline Miami. The weapons themselves are about as realistic as the “pew-pew” guns from Star Wars are (Yes, I’m sure they have a name, but I don’t care), but just as satisfying. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved will teach the players to love two words: “Super State”. At first, I doubt they’ll actually understand what the cyberpunk guy actually said, but you’ll learn to love the sound of his voice. When he says that, it means a power up has appeared somewhere in the level. The power ups are actually a collection of small circles, arranged in the pattern of the type of power up it is. Shoot all these dots, and the power up is yours for a few crucial seconds.

The graphics are simple, yet incredibly effective. Neon colours are vibrant, and seem to pop out of each other. Explosions send shockwaves and colourful sparks bouncing around the arena, creating a beautiful light show, until you realise you’re pretty much one man committing genocide against an entire dimension. Between the graphics and the audio, it feels like what people from the 80’s imagined the future would be like. Even though they are two completely different games, my mind keeps wandering back to Far Cry: Blood Dragon whenever I start up the game. I’m almost certain that both games use the scrolling grid effect in their title screens, which also reminds me of Tron.

With all this good, there are only a few nit-picks I can make. Firstly, if you have a headache playing this game is probably the worst thing you could do, apart from going to a Linkin Park concert (it really isn’t a good idea, doesn’t even matter how hard you try). I had a headache before playing it recently, and it feels like an axe is embedded in my forehead while writing this review.

Secondly, this game is frustrating. Like, irritating to the point of rage quitting, depending on how long your fuse is. Personally, I never became irate enough to stop playing, but no matter who you are, how old you are, or whether or not you’re a nun, you will swear during this game. It’ll be small at first, and most likely in your head. But when you’re 40 points away from 4,000,000 points only to be stabbed in the back by a tiny speck you didn’t see, you’ll be cursing like a sailor. Seriously. This game will annoy you. That’s another thing Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved shares with Hotline Miami: You will be used to death. You will become accustomed to failure. Luckily, the game thought of this and allows the player to quick restart whenever they die, whether or not the death caused you to lose the level.

And finally, all upgrades I purchased never affected how my ship handled, or used its weapons. They all go into a little buddy you get along the way (let’s call him Baxter. He also hates maths). Your drone pal is impervious to enemies, and the most basic model fires wherever you do. This is much more useful that not having him at all, but I would have liked my upgrades to help my ship directly, instead of a secondary gun who may or may not be in the correct position to stop the cuboid that’s making a beeline for the one part of the ship I can’t protect right now.

I could go on about each type of enemy, the different stages, or about Humphrey’s backstory, but I won’t. Overall, Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved probably won’t win any game of the year awards. But in its own right, it’s a very fun, addictive little title. Anyone who wants a fresh lick of paint on an old classic should probably invest. Also, those wishing to discover time travel, as twenty minutes can easily turn into 4 hours.