GameLog Page

Please sign in or sign up!

...blogs for gamers

Find a GameLog

... by game	... by platform

[ advanced search ]

HOME	GAMES	LOGS	MEMBERS			ABOUT	HELP

jp's Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved (PS4)

[November 5, 2018 05:50:51 PM]

There's a special pleasure to playing a game you know is hard, it kicks your butt...and then you get better!

I wouldn't say that I'm particularly good at the game (other than the fact that my scores were better than my two other PSN friends who had played the game, based on what the game loaded in) but I feel like I got better, which I think is the main point.

(it's pretty clear that I'm not super good because I was only able to get 3 stars on three levels - after trying a lot, from "regular" play I never got more than 2 stars)

I'm not sure how this incarnation of geometry wars compares to earlier ones, but I'm really surprised by how much the shape (topology?) of the environment affects the play experience. It would seem that playing on a sphere, cube, pill, peanut, rectangle would mostly be the same, but it was not. I noticed that each shape required that I try out different tactics to succeed in a way I was not expecting - in great part I think it has to do with how different playfields have different line of sight (e.g. being able to shoot/kill enemies that are out of your line of sight) and as you move around you might inadvertedly die/lose a life to an enemy that was just over the horizon and you ran into. It also affects how much you have to pay attention to what's going on - some environments have corners you can hide in, others might have more open space you can dodge and weave around and so on. I almost want to say that the surface area you can cover with bullets varies as well...

I got reasonably far - enough to unlock a few drones, upgrade others, get some drone supers, etc.

And I really, really enjoyed how varied the experience was across the (25 or so?) levels I played. In the beginning I had decided that my goal was to clear the first boss. Given how poorly I did in the beginning this looked like a really hard goal. But, as I got better (and understood how the score system worked) I just kept going. Each new level had a new wrinkle or variation that seemed interesting and exciting to try out. So I did. Sometimes it was the level goals (get a score in X time, get a score at least X in one life), sometimes it was the topology of the playfield, other times it was specific settings - like the level with an "infection" that multiplied stuff you had to kill for no points or the one where you couldn't shoot, but could activate mines (which you had to do strategically in order to take out enemies that dropped score multipliers without which it's impossible to get the target score).

I think I'm adding this one to my list of games to refer students to as a case study for interesting variations on a solid gameplay core. It also highlights how score systems and game goals can drive the experience in super important ways.

Great game.