Late last year, a coworker of mines was playing this crazy game on his computer where shapes of all different types were colliding on the screen. The few minutes I spent watching him play made me both confused and nauseous.

The nausea didn’t quelch my interest in the game, however. When a version came out for the Nintendo DS, I leaped at the chance and grabbed one for myself. I haven’t played the original so I don’t have any comparisons to make between the current and the one from before.

In Geometry Wars: Galaxies, there are a number of stages which cost geoms to unlock. Geoms are gathered from blowing up enemies in the stages. As geoms are collected, a multiplier tallies up which multiplies the score received from defeating enemies. Also, if a certain amount of geoms are obtained, an extra life or bomb is added to the ship.

Besides unlocking stages, geoms can be used to unlock the weapon type for the accompanying drone. The drone tags along with the main ship and has a certain ability chosen before the start of the stage.

Drone/Abilites

Attack – Shoots ahead
Defend – Shoots behind
Collect – Collects Geoms
Snipe – Shoots a target one by one
Sweep – Acts as a rotating shield around the ship
Ram – Runs into enemies
Turret – Sits still occasionally and shoots in a full circle
Bait – Draws enemies to its location

Using a drone continuously will build up its power. A fully leveled turret drone can clear the entire screen for a few seconds in some cases. I prefer using the Attack, Defend, and Turret. The others seem too limited in their power and/or usefulness.

The goal of the game is to pretty much attain a high score and stay alive as long as possible. There are medals awarded for the amount of points gained during a stage too.

The play factor was addictive for awhile, but the controls required using the pointer far too often for my liking. My wrist hurt a bit after every game. If you can get away with nabbing a friend’s copy, you should do it; but, getting one for yourself is probably not a good idea.