The shapes range from simple spheres and cubes to peanuts and cylinders, with certain levels adding surface barriers or warp zones to mix things up even more. The action looks stunning, with the whole GW graph-paper vibe translating wonderfully into wireframe 3D shapes, and the camera following the transitions across sharp-angled edges perfectly. The levels adopt and tweak one particular mode as a ruleset (so a Deadline level will be timed, whereas an Evolved level will give you X lives) but all depend on scoring a particular amount to pass with one star – with two to three stars awarded for further increments. The more questionable aspect of GW3:D is the Adventure mode, which features 3D arenas of varying shapes and sizes, bosses, and a grind-based star structure. With that not-insignifcant caveat, classic mode is great. To the point where I prefer to play with the music off and the old tune playing. It just doesn't feel right, it doesn't get me excited, and it doesn't escalate enough to keep pace with the action. The theme used for the main Evolved game is an aggressive, pulsing classic that got an even better remix in Geometry Wars 2. My only issue with classic mode is that the music feels way off-base. So classic mode offers up five ways to play the daddy of twinstick shooters, and looks and feels great. Your ship's quick and responsive, but still feels like it's moving through a thick atmosphere rather than a vacuum, and pulling crazy jukes around lazy purple windmills and frantically waggling away from those green bastards is as exhilarating as ever. The new visuals are super-snazzy, with pixelly explosions everywhere, bright neon every colour of the rainbow, and a pleasing chunkiness that all adds up to a gorgeous laser lightshow. The Classic option in GW3D offers 'remakes' of Retro Evolved, Pacifism, Waves, King and Deadline that are essentially unchanged from GW: RE2 other than the visual overhaul. The point is that GW is a simple game to play but has lots of layers to playing it well. This principle extends to your own skill across games – you learn movement patterns, how to deal with mass enemy spawns, what to do about black holes, and so on. By three or four minutes in you'll be either dead or shooting directly ahead of your ship to clear a path, because the screen is so jammed with nasties that the only way to survive is keep moving and blast out routes. What makes GW magical is how these ingredients create an experience that changes over the course of a single match – so at the start of a game you'll be shooting at specific enemies, for example. The enemy types are colour-coded with specific behaviours that never change, and slot neatly together into a kaleidoscope of death. The right analogue stick sends out a steady stream of shots in the direction pressed, and every enemy in the game will be destroyed by a single hit. It feels great to move around, which is why one of GW's very best modes – Pacifism – is constructed around just avoiding enemies. You control a small vaguely U-shaped ship that moves at a constant speed, and has a slight but crucial turning circle – that is, you can't just instantly reverse direction. The best place to start is with why Geometry Wars works. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions (geddit?) has been a long time coming and adds an adventure mode and online alongside its own 'classic' versions of GW – but is it all a bit much? Which despite everything is what Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved managed, through leaving the core game well alone and splitting off aspects of its finely-tuned mechanics into their own modes. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved is one of those classic designs that's so lean and simple it's very hard to improve upon.
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