Geometry Wars: Galaxies (DS)

Beating on the squares.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 2

You can customize a lot of the Galaxies controls for your DS, even making it friendly for lefties, but there is a small problem for certain hand sizes. The default righty setup uses the directional pad for movement (naturally) and the rear left button to deploy your bombs. But with the DS open all the way, there's not a lot of room for a finger back there, especially if you want to use the top display screen for the action. Since you'll need to keep your thumb on the d-pad, you may find that rear button not firing at the time you want it to. Then the hand-cramps kick in because of the claw-like grip you've been using to keep thumbs and fingers in the right place.

The beauty of all the Geometry Wars games is that you can easily enjoy them in small bursts, so you can avoid the cramping that will afflict gamers of a certain age. Galaxies further compartmentalizes the gameplay into coherent segments, so you can conquer a planet or two and then move on to something meatier. Galaxies is almost custom-made for enduring those one-hour subway trips or lectures from mom.

Is there enough here to justify a new title? Marginally. You still shoot polygons against a series of retro backgrounds, but there is enough longevity and replay value in Galaxies to set it apart from the raft of other arcade shooters on the market.

This review was based on a retail copy provided by the publisher.