[Review] Geometry Survivor

Geometry Survivor is what happens when you crash together the bullet heaven gameplay of Vampire Survivors with the neon-soaked, wireframe visuals of Xbox Live Arcade Hit Geometry Wars. It’s a combo that instantly makes sense, yet in its current state it lacks ideas of its own and never strays beyond the basics.

Geometry Survivor nails the basics of the bullet heaven genre, in which you only control your movement while your weapons fire automatically at regular intervals as you try to survive ever-increasing waves of enemies. Every minute or two you’ll level up and be given the chance to gain a new weapon or upgrade an existing one.

Each weapon has four levels to it, with each culminating in a final ‘evolution’. Between runs, you’ll have the chance to spend credits to unlock permanent upgrades and new ships. The upgrades are almost all straightforwardly beneficial, while some of the alternate ships make things harder by, for example, increasing the speed of the game or giving a boost to the credits you earn at the expense of XP.

These genre staples all work well here. On paper, this gameplay might sound simplistic, yet the best examples of the genre conjure a meditative state of mind as you dodge increasingly challenging waves of enemies and watch your expanding arsenal tear up the screen. The 80s inspired visuals and sound work really well in this format. Your ship and all enemies are basic neon shapes that zip around the screen and explode in bursts of jagged shards when destroyed. The excellent soundtrack ramps up in intensity as the minutes tick by.

While I’m all in favour of lean game design, right now Geometry Survivor is in desperate need of a lot more content and variety. It feels like a retro arcade game by design, with only one level with no terrain or features other than mines and health pick-ups that appear occasionally to keep you interested over a prolonged time.

There’s a decent variety of enemies to contend with, but they don’t vary at all between runs, with new foes appearing at the same time and building to a familiar crescendo. You’re on a twenty-minute timer, which means that every successful run will last exactly twenty minutes and no longer. I liked this initially as it gave me a clear goal to aim at, but it adds to the repetitive nature of repeat runs.

The randomised nature of weapon upgrades shakes things up a bit, but here too Geometry Survivor falls short. There are a number of cool power ups that I always looked forward to getting, but it wasn’t enough. One of my favourites was a quad laser that shot four red beams that sliced through ships like lightsabers through butter.

You can drop exploding mines, shoot bursts of machine-gun like bullets at enemies that stray too close, and create temporary black holes. It’s all entertainingly flashy stuff, but there just aren’t enough of these weapons to make repeated runs feel fresh. On top of this, you’re usually restricted to having six weapons at a time, limiting the variety available. Before you reach the end of a run, you’ll almost always max out your arsenal.

Another problem for me personally is that the game is surprisingly easy. I managed a successful twenty-minute completion of the game on my tenth attempt, after less than an hour of playtime, with only five upgrades purchased, using the starter ship. Certain upgrades feel overpowered. I found the aforementioned quad lasers to be mightily effective, but probably the worst offender was the blast shield, which gave me a regenerating shield that felt like a win button whenever it showed up.

Geometry Survivor badly needs some extra spice if it’s to become more than a brief distraction. More stages, bonus areas, a more diverse and randomised range of enemies, along with more unlockables, could all go a long way to bring the game on par with the games that inspired it.

While I enjoyed my time with the game, I can’t deny that my motivation to continue playing was dampened when I ‘beat’ it after just an hour of play. That said, this will stay part of my rotation of games, and is a welcome change of pace when I need something simple to play in between longer titles or after a hard-working day.

When it all comes together just right, and you see a swarm of wireframe starships hurtling towards you as you try to line up a shot from your chunkiest gun, it’s a great time. It just needs to expand on this flashy but ultimately shallow experience to lift it to becoming something special.