Geon: Emotions – Retro Trippy Arcade Joy on XBLA Today
A bit like Pac Man. On very strong MDMA.
SPOnG's Adam has been raving about today’s latest XBLA game, Geon: Emotions, since he spent a good part of yesterday playing it with the British developers, Strawdogs, over at the game’s publisher Eidos’ offices down in sunny Wimbledon.
Geon: Emotions, according to our Adam: “Plays a bit like Pac-Man and Marble Madness and a bunch of other classic 80’s arcade game mechanics all mixed together in a rather pleasantly manic way. Which sounds a bit like a PR-soundbyte, apart from the fact that it’s true.”
“I was a bit concerned at first that there were too many different variables and power-ups in the game to make it properly accessible,” Adam added, “though once I’d played through the tutorial I had very quickly picked up the basics and could well have continued playing the game all day. The developers at Strawdogs have nailed both the classic-arcade-in-high-def and the ‘just one more go’ aspect perfectly. For me, I’d say this could well be the next Geometry Wars.”
While Geon: Emotions is fun as a single-player experience it is multiplayer that it really comes into its own, with intense one-on-one or two-on-two head-to-head battling either in Live mode or in split-screen.
Players choose to play as one of eight different emotions – Rage, Passion, Fear, Envy, Rapture, Courage, Bliss or Melancholy – collect pellets in a Pac-Man style way and scoring goals (by flipping over the map and popping your collected pellets in your opponents’ goalpost).
Each emotion has distinct weaknesses and strengths and is able to make better use of particular themed power-ups, which you use to speed up your pellet-collecting or to nobble your opponent (who lives on the flipside of the map).
SPOnG urges you to check the Geon: Emotions demo as soon as you can - and check back later today for Adam's more detailed review - as he seems fairly sure you will want to buy the full version which is now up and priced at 800 Microsoft Points ($10 or a mere £5).
Geon: Emotions, according to our Adam: “Plays a bit like Pac-Man and Marble Madness and a bunch of other classic 80’s arcade game mechanics all mixed together in a rather pleasantly manic way. Which sounds a bit like a PR-soundbyte, apart from the fact that it’s true.”
“I was a bit concerned at first that there were too many different variables and power-ups in the game to make it properly accessible,” Adam added, “though once I’d played through the tutorial I had very quickly picked up the basics and could well have continued playing the game all day. The developers at Strawdogs have nailed both the classic-arcade-in-high-def and the ‘just one more go’ aspect perfectly. For me, I’d say this could well be the next Geometry Wars.”
While Geon: Emotions is fun as a single-player experience it is multiplayer that it really comes into its own, with intense one-on-one or two-on-two head-to-head battling either in Live mode or in split-screen.
Players choose to play as one of eight different emotions – Rage, Passion, Fear, Envy, Rapture, Courage, Bliss or Melancholy – collect pellets in a Pac-Man style way and scoring goals (by flipping over the map and popping your collected pellets in your opponents’ goalpost).
Each emotion has distinct weaknesses and strengths and is able to make better use of particular themed power-ups, which you use to speed up your pellet-collecting or to nobble your opponent (who lives on the flipside of the map).
SPOnG urges you to check the Geon: Emotions demo as soon as you can - and check back later today for Adam's more detailed review - as he seems fairly sure you will want to buy the full version which is now up and priced at 800 Microsoft Points ($10 or a mere £5).
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