Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions

We got our first look at the recently announced Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, and it's a big first step for Activision's Sierra revival. Lucid Games is twisting and turning the formula for release this fall.

Geometry Wars first made its appearance in Bizarre Creations' Project Gotham Racing 2 as a minigame. The twin-stick shooter earned a life of its own, spawning a number of standalone digital releases on Xbox 360, DS, and Wii. The Nintendo platform versions were published by Sierra (explaining the connection to Activision's new initiative).

This time out, Geometry Wars will appear on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC. Lucid is adding two new modes to flesh out the experience. Players will be able to engage in competitive multiplayer and co-operative play.

We had a chance to see some of the adventure mode, which is similar to the classic Geometry Wars gameplay. Players will travel across 50 grids, taking on enemies and the newly introduced bosses. We saw three levels and a boss fight, and the action is as fast and frenetic as ever.

Geometry Wars 3 still plays in two dimensions, but some of the grids put players on a three dimensional surface. We saw a cylinder, a peanut-shaped construct, and a boss battle on a cube.

It's fascinating to watch the bullets ripple around the surface of a stage that is also rotating and undulating underneath your ship. Not every stage is three dimensional, and you will be playing on traditional, flat arenas. It's also not the only change.

Some of the stages will change as you battle, with new walls popping up, changing shape and size, and becoming deadly to the touch. Enemies have mass, with some indenting the 3D battlefields as if creating ripples on an ocean.

Geometry Wars introduces a wider range of supers, including turrets, detonators, and miners. We only saw the turret, which fills the battlefield with bullets in all directions. There are also a variety of drones that are autonomous assistants with a number of different AI profiles, like attack, ram, and defend.

The boss fight we witnessed, includes a large enemy that goes through multiple stages as it's damaged. It can add smaller enemies, and lift itself from its rooted position to become more aggressive.

For the competitive set, Geometry Wars 3 will give you easy-to-identify visual notifications when a friend has bested your score. On the grid map, stages will turn red if a friend has surpassed your score.

There's still much more to learn about Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, but as a first look, we're hungry for more detail. It's been a while since we last played a new Geometry Wars title, and Activision is smart to inaugurate the new Sierra with a title that is easy to pick up and play, encourages competition among friends, and looks pretty great even at this early stage.