It's tough being a neophyte wizard in the world of Ziggurat. If spending two decades learning the fundamentals of magic and spellcasting isn't hard enough, you must now put those skills to the test in the infamous, multi-leveled ziggurat, where creatures from myth and fantasy eagerly wait to snuff out your very existence. Ziggurat, a first-person, dungeon-crawling roguelike, won't overwhelm you with its brief length. But as short as your victory run may be, the brisk combat flow and compelling sense of progression will keep you transfixed despite some minor problems.
You will face many challenges as you leap and sprint through the labyrinthine ziggurat. It features procedural level design, which means you get a different adventure every time you play. Like The Binding of Isaac, levels are constructed of a series of linked rooms, and the doors slam shut in the presence of dark minions, sealing you in with your prey…or your hunters. Lurking in the dark passageways you find the usual smattering of fantasy archetypes, such as necromancers, sword-wielding skeletons, and impish goblins--along with some exceptions, such as evil mushrooms and crab-clawed demons. Oh, and killer carrots. Yes, carrots, which are almost too adorable to put back into the ground--but what else are you to do against vegetables that turn evil?
Is there a blob heaven?
Some rooms contain traps you must overcome, or modifiers that change how you approach a fight. The latter can include increasing enemy size or quadrupling damage given and received; you can also get something more aesthetic, such as the always-amusing big pixel mode, which gives the game the look of a mid-90s shooter.
Every quest into the ziggurat's recesses has a humble beginning. At first, you are armed with only a simple wand and a slowly regenerating mana pool. But your arsenal steadily increases to include three other magical tools and powers, including spells of ice and poison and staffs that rapidly fire glowing bolts of energy. Weapons and spells are scattered throughout the ziggurat's many rooms and floors, either floating in the air or stored in chests, just waiting to get plucked and added to your hotbar. Each come equipped with an alternate attack that changes their attack speed or potency at a higher cost to your mana pool, which is replenished by picking up colored gems that fallen enemies occasionally drop. It won't be long until you find your favorite tools of the mystical trade. The magma rifle, with its incredible range and powerful explosive slug, is always a top choice. But the one I will always make a mad dash for is the scarab beetle staff, which fires red bugs that ricochet off surfaces. The staff works wonders at medium range, but in smaller rooms, those carrots don't stand a chance!
Ziggurat is a fight for survival against some nasty foes, but the longer you persevere, the more chances you have at increasing your odds of survival. Gathering knowledge gems that are periodically dropped by your fallen enemies allows you to level up and choose one of several random perks, which come in the form of magical cards. Perks can also be acquired in secret rooms, their hiding places betrayed by cracks in the wall. An element of strategy is involved in picking the right perk, and your decision can have a huge effect on how long you last against the oppressive odds--in Ziggurat, you will find that long-term planning can lead to handsome rewards. Favoring the perk that instantly replenishes any lost health seems like a no-brainer. But you have a choice between said card and Bookworm, which allows you to choose among three cards on the next level instead of the default two, how would you proceed? You can also gamble with your fate in rooms where shrines to ancient deities rest. Sacrificing health or mana give you a chance to earn a divine favor if you're fortuitous or a penalty if you're not. If you stumble upon the Oracle perk, which removes all divine punishments, fortune will smile upon you.
Wingardium Leviosa! Wait, that isn't right...
Movement and combat flow at a rapid pace, reminiscent of classic shooters of yore. There is no stamina to speak of, so sprinting from room to room goes unabated. It's actually quite common to fly through an entire floor in under 10 minutes. You're not slowed down by pools of water, and you can fall from precarious heights without taking any damage. You can adjust your position in the air as well, which is necessary for some of the challenge rooms. These rooms award you with a new perk, spell, or weapon after you dodge flying darts or nimbly hop across rocks and floating debris in stretching pools of lava. This degree of energetic locomotion keeps your heart pounding as you explore the ziggurat, often running backwards, Serious-Sam style, from approaching clutches of hungry foes, picking them off with shotgun blasts of arcane ice or blowing them apart with chemical bombs. Ziggurat's sweat-inducing velocity, combined with the satisfying feeling of growth brought about by its perks system, is, well, spellbinding, and it had me returning to its musty halls even late into the night.
But some issues will pull you out of the enchantment. There are graphical glitches and performance issues, such as frame rate drops and flickering shadows. In its defense, however, Ziggurat looks fantastic. The game dazzles with a charming, almost Fable-like quality, with sources of light emanating from burning torches or esoteric crystals sprouting from the floor to cast bright hues of purple, yellow, and green against grungy stone walls and floors. So it's a shame that on rare occasions, black smears damage Ziggurat's attractiveness. These smudges flicker as you look around, and they can be thin and amorphous, stretching across the screen. The worst smear I encountered covered a good third of the upper portion of my view. And let me tell you, when you have hulking foes to fight and projectiles to dodge, missing such a huge chunk of the screen is unacceptable. The blotches, oddly, only exist in a single room at random, and they seem to be triggered by minions. I couldn't make any sense of this phenomenon, which haunted several of my playthroughs.
It's a trap!
Beyond that, I just can't seem to find any love toward Ziggurat's bosses, who guard the portal you use to ascend to the next floor. Some of the bosses are merely larger versions of existing enemies, but none of them, except the final boss, offer much of a fight. Most go down after a minute or two of circle strafing, while you only have to dodge the occasional flying projectile.
Ziggurat can be completed in just over an hour, but it's unlikely you will stop there. The game is challenging, engaging, and a whole lot of fun, despite its problems. There is an abundance of perks to discover and up to 11 characters to unlock, all of whom have a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. If you believe you have the mystical skills to conquer the mighty Ziggurat, now is your chance to prove your worth.
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved, the free update to last fall's Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, is a tale of two radically different tapes. On the first tape, you have a twin-stick shooting level design and potentially supernatural reflexes pushed to their limits in beautiful, technicolor harmony. On the other tape rests some of the most punishing, unfairly designed boss fights this side of a SNES side-scroller. That Geometry Wars 3 remains a great game despite boss fights that transformed me into an apoplectic, rage-fueled, profanity-spewing monster is a testament to just how much Lucid Games has perfected its score-chasing, polyhedral exploding craft.
Let's talk about the first tape. The first time I saw the score required to pass "Super Sequence," the penultimate level of Geometry Wars 3's new Hardcore Mode, I let out a weak laugh. 20 million points … I consider myself to be an above-average Geometry Wars player, but 20-million-point runs tend to be reserved for my best Pacifism performances. My laugh was premature. It should have been reserved for the level itself. Countless swarms of purple pinwheels, yellow flowers, pink twin cuboids, magnetic blue octahedrons, and yellow rockets filled my screen in a flash of color that would make the opening credits of Enter the Void blush. And I died. I died very quickly.
The neverending pursuit of perfection.
But, as Geometry Wars has always shown, there is a pattern to this madness. The pattern involves dozens of enemies coming to life at once and forcing you to channel your inner "Luke Skywalker on the Death Star run" persona while playing more aggressively and dangerously than you ever have before. Geometry Wars gave me the tools to survive, though, and after far fewer attempts than I would have ever guessed, I breezed to 50 million points, which was still 100 million points shy of a two-star score (and 250 million points shy of a three-star run). Surviving pushed me to my very limits in a way that few games ever have, but I felt satisfied that I had earned my victory.
Let's move on to the second tape: "Aventurine." Oh, "Aventurine." I will remember your name for the next 10 years. One of the most maligned elements of Geometry Wars 3's original release last year was its boss fights. Dimensions Evolved only makes it worse. "Aventurine" is the second boss fight (of four) in the game's "Ultimate" campaign, which adds 40 new levels to the Adventure Mode. I'm ranked in the top 50 in the world right now on that level with a score I obtained without ever even beating the boss. Similarly, I'm ranked 27th in the world for a run on the final and only boss on Hardcore Mode, and I still haven't beaten it. I suspect I never will.
The challenges never let up.
It took me multiple hours to conquer any given boss in Geometry Wars 3's Ultimate Mode, but "Aventurine" was my own personal Rubicon. I spent over four hours with the spawn location and attack patterns of every single damn enemy on that level memorized -- which occurred after about half an hour or so -- sitting straight up and staring at my TV with such intensity that I saw explosions in the back field of my vision any time I looked away. Geometry Wars had burned itself into the essence of my vision. But I couldn't beat the son of a … word that's inappropriate for a family-friendly publication. When I finally did persevere -- after escaping from near collisions and deaths by mere pixels -- I didn't feel like Rocky toppling Apollo Creed, ecstatic in my triumph and hard work. I felt like a war-torn veteran crawling out of the foxhole after months of nightly bombardments. I never want to fight that boss again. I never want to play any of those boss fights again.
I would rather fight Bloodborne's Cleric Beast with just my fists and no blood vials than ever touch "Aventurine" or Hardcore Mode's "Topaz" ever again. Yet, despite the most agonizing video game bosses I've ever forced myself to overcome--minus "Topaz" because there's only so much I'm willing to let my blood pressure rise for the sake of a video game achievement--Geometry Wars 3 is better than ever before. Dimensions Evolved has all the content of a minor expansion pack at the price of a free update. This is the standard version of the game moving forward, and minus the abysmal boss fights, Geometry Wars 3 is better, more dynamic, and bigger than ever before.
Hardcore Mode addresses the second biggest complaint that long-time Geometry Wars devotees had with the base game: unlocking drones. Drones and drone supers marred the inherent purity of Geometry Wars' scoreboards. Players who spent more time upgrading their drones had an advantage when trying to reach higher scores. Hardcore Mode does away with drones so only you and the phantasmagoric-colored battlefield determine your performance. Many of these levels were designed with drones in mind, however, so the game supplies plenty of super states to help level the playing field in your favor, which you'll appreciate when well over a hundred enemies are on the screen at once. With the exception of the last level, "Topaz," the 20 remixed Hardcore levels send a jolt of adrenaline right into the veins of long-time series fans.
Ultimate Mode is a larger addition, featuring 40 new levels and a host of new level types and enemies. While the continued presence of drones in Ultimate Mode may displease fans who can't abide that gameplay addition, the excellent level design should soothe most other fans' concerns. Whether you're on the level that plays out like an old-school, bullet-hell, Ikaruga-style shooter with fatal red walls pushing you ever forward or playing the new "Scorpion" mode, which feels like Centipede on steroids, Ultimate Mode constantly pushes the play palette of the series forward while maintaining the breakneck challenge and pace the series is loved for.
I put more than a dozen hours into Dimensions Evolved, but I already fear the dozens of hours more that I'm going to dump into Ultimate and Hardcore Modes as I try to best my own scores and those of my friends. The boss fights remain a titanically poor decision for a series focused on lightning-fast, frenetic gameplay, but when the rest of the package has only gotten better and more varied, they're a frustrating but small price to pay.
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