Game Reviews

Geon

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Geon
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Underneath the anarchistic posturing and severe haircuts, The Sex Pistols played some pretty simplistic and traditional rock ‘n’ roll.

In the same way, Geon might look like a progressive iPhone puzzler with neon-soaked 3D visuals and stylised menus, but underneath it plays like a simple, traditional maze runner.

Never mind the visuals...

Just as the Pistols pinched a few Rolling Stones riffs for their savage assault on the British music industry, so Geon riffs on Pac-Man for its raid on the App Store.

The goal is incredibly familiar: rush to pick up a bunch of dots from within a series of mazes (and eight bonus games). Admittedly, Geon applies a few unique rules of its own starting with your cube-shaped avatar, which rolls around in a style reminiscent of Edge.

There are no hungry ghosts to stop you here, either - only an ever ticking clock. As time marches across each of the five rounds - it takes all five to collect every single dot in the arena - so your chances of winning a gold, silver, or bronze medal decrease.

Then there are the power-ups, which represent the bulk of the game's innovation. Once collected and activated, these power-ups afford powers such as attracting surrounding dots, spawning, extra helpers or giving some kind of enhanced speed boost.

Dotty tactics

This introduces a welcome tactical slant to an otherwise straightforward collect ‘em up. Deciding when to deploy your power-up and when to keep hold of it (thus utilizing its speed-enhancing properties) is a fine balancing act.

Despite this, Geon is an unremarkable game. Its open maze design robs it of a sense of momentum (which the likes of Pac-Man Championship Edition has in spades), as you find yourself having to double back to pick up stray dots.

This is exacerbated by some slightly vague controls, with neither virtual nor tilt variants feeling completely comfortable. If anything, the tilt control scheme feels more immediate, but it's still not accurate enough to avoid frustration.

Style over substance is an overused term, but it applies perfectly to Geon. It’s a fun maze runner, but it fails to live up to the promise made by its slick visuals thanks to some pedestrian gameplay.

Geon

Knockout visuals mask the fun, yet uninspired maze runner that is Geon
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.