Geometry wars galaxies - Review

For those of you that have never heard of geometry wars, it was originally a mini game on the Xbox 360 game "Project Gotham Racing 3." In it you could stroll around your garage and in the corner were two fully playable arcade machines, with two versions of geometry wars on. Since then it has been an onlne hit and an arcade game downloadable from Xbox live. Now, finally, the game has come to ds and wii. Geometry wars is all about you, which is basically a round thing, trying to avoid being touched y floating geometric shapes which attack you. Here's a screenshot below:

On the original arcade game, you had one area to "fight" in. However, in Geometry wars galeaxies you have many solar system, and in that many planets, to fight in. Also, you have many upgrades, and you can build your style in how you play. For example, if you try to defend yourself all the time, you can level that up, and if you want to assault the shapes, you can upgrade your firepower etc.
There are two ways to play this game, with and without the touch screen. However, it's much easier to use the touch screen rather than the abxy controls as it allows for swift 360 degree movement of your line of fire, and includes a "snipe" feature in which you can shoot past other objects and destroy ones behind that, which is impressive considering this is a 2 dimensiona game. To move around, and avoid getting hit by the shapes, you use the directional pad, and if you're in a tight spot, and would like to annihilate everything on screen instantly, you can use the shoulder buttons to activate your bombs.
This gameplay is extremely addictive, and holds out well for what is essentially a remake of a simple game, but with different maps. I'd like to point out here that the different maps are a black background with longitude and lattitude lines running across them. What makes each map different is in its geometic shape, overal area and the way in which the shapes attack you. Each map has a differently varied method of spawning its shapes, and chooses specifically which shapes to spawn. Because this is on the Ds, wifi is equipped, so it leads for some interesting online play and a lot of bragging rights. Each game in "Campaign" mode is based upon standard points. You gain points for killing shapes, and the more shapes you kill, the more points you get, plus there are bonuses along the way. It's a basic formula for games. During each level you have to accumulate a certain amount of points to get medals, which make unlocking the next planet or solar system cheaper. For example, you could play a level 100 times and earn enough "geoms" to buy the next level, but if you play it once and get all three medals, bronze, silver, and gold, the next level will either be really cheap, or free.
This is a useful entiement for so called "lazy gamers" and to be honest, if you let your concentration slip in this game, you're dead. When you've got quite far into the level everything starts to get hectic beyond belief and those bombs really will be appreciated. This game does what all video games should do: Excite, exhilerate and cause stress.
However playing this game for too long will cause exhaustion and aching hands. It's really a miracle how such a simple game, such a technically boring game, can be so addictive, it's like a next gen Tetris. In terms of the graphics, the Ds can cope easily with the bright colours and the simple geometric shapes, but the one feature removed from the ds version that still exists on the 360 and the Wii is that when certain shapes were destroyed, and when bombs were activated, the lateral lines in the background would wobble and ripple, creating a 3d atmospshere. This, for reasons unknown, has been removed from the Ds version. However the game still looks amazing, and the lack of impressive graphics won'y bother you as you'll spend most of your time trying to to touch the shapes.
With regards to the shapes themselves, they're not all squares and triangles as you'd expect. If you remember spirographs from when you were younger, some of the shapes that attack you are very similar to the shapes you can create using that. As an extra incentive to replay this game once completed, you can sync your Ds to your Wii and gain a whole new solar system to play on. Everyone always appreciates fringe benifits like that for owning both wii and ds.
As to the overall gameplay, it's manic, frenetic and hectic beyond belief, but there are no frame rate issues, no lagginess, it runs as smooth as clockwork. However, this game can get repeptitive over time, and will make your hands ache, even for experienced gamers. There is a lack of rippling backgrounds like this:

And this is extremely annoying, because that's the main reason this retro arcade game seemed spruced up to the next generation. Now it only has the bright colours to make it look modern, as the gameplay itself can't be said to be overly original.
Overal this game deserves 88% because it's addictve, fun to play, hard at times even for hardcore gamers and it's absolutely relentless. If you get someone playing this, they will have to concentrate like they've never before to succeed at this game. However, on the down side, it may be too hard for casual gamers, will make your hands ache and it can get repetitive. Plus, if you don't own a Wii as well, you'll never get to play the special unlockable level, which may be annoying. However overall this game is an unsung hero on the Ds sales charts and deserves more advertising than it currently receives.