14 DAY TRIAL // Geometry Wards as a franchise had a crazy birth, first appearing as a side game in Project Gotham Racing, but ended up a cult classic. Unfortunately, its popularity wasn't enough to save developer Bizarre Creations, which closed its doors several years ago, leaving the rights to the series with publisher Activision.
At Gamescom 2014, the large corporation decided to revive its old Sierra publishing label through the announcement of its first project, Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions.
The title is coming from a new UK indie studio called Lucid, which is made up of former Bizarre Creations veterans, not to mention plenty of old developers from Sony but also lots of fresh talent.
The new title promises to overhaul the core recipe seen in previous Geometry Wars titles, while adding popular elements from other similar titles like Super Stardust or Resogun, both made by Housemarque.
Instead of limiting itself to the old 2D flat environments seen in previous titles, Dimensions uses 3D levels that have all sorts of shapes and sizes, ranging from big cubes to horizontal cylinders and even a peanut-shaped one.
While you'll still be shooting at foes using your trusty ship, there are now new special powers that can be equipped before the start of each stage, including a turret that can spray the whole level with bullets. You can also deploy the usual bombs to clear a screen but expect smart and much more varied opponents.
While progressing through the single-player grid-like mission campaign with 50 stages, players will also have to deal with boss encounters, which have apparently been requested by plenty of veteran fans. These require more skill and reward patience, as the bigger foes are much more dangerous than the regular, smaller ones.
The game also features 10 different cooperative levels that can be played by up to four people locally and eight players online. Plenty of unique game modes are promised by Lucid but, right now, it's still keeping things under a shroud of secrecy.
The game, as with previous ones, looks absolutely gorgeous, using the voxel design to great effect. The soundtrack is amazing with plenty of techno, house and rave songs augmenting the action on the screen.
Geometry Wards 3: Dimensions is aiming at a release later this year for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Depending on user feedback, it might also appear on other platforms. Across all of them Lucid wants a 60fps framerate. While this means that some visual effects might be lowered in intensity or quality on last-gen platforms, the studio pledges that the game will play the same on all of them.