XG Blast! (Nintendo DS) Review

At its most basic level, XG Blast! is almost identical to its pseudo spiritual predecessor. As the player you are tasked with flying the Aknathen, an experimental spaceship with a ton of firepower, around a selection of increasingly claustrophobic spaces as swarms of foes relentlessly descend upon you. Your only hope of survival is to carefully manoeuvre (using the D-Pad) around said foes while unleashing volleys of laser fire (using buttons or the stylus) back at them.

Comparisons to Geometry Wars don't stop there, though. The two games also share the same visual style. GW fans will immediately recognize the simple geometric shapes that represent foes; the dark, star-filled levels with their glowing boundaries; and the constant barrage of luminous particle effects. This decidedly retro approach to graphics is, as it was with GW, a suitable throwback to the era from which XG Blast! takes its inspiration, but it's no longer as exciting.

The game's mechanics offer a little more innovation, but not enough to change the underlying formula in any truly significant ways. In addition to the standard laser weapon, a selection of additional weapons that vary in terms of power, rate of fire, spread, and precision, can be found in most levels (arenas). Utilising the strengths of each becomes increasingly important when you are forced to overcome more challenging arenas with only one or two at your disposal.

XG Blast!'s defining feature, however, is the one from which it derives its name. The XG Blast is a "powerful gravitational weapon" that can wipe out hordes in enemies in one fell swoop. Using the XG Blast requires power, and power can only be recuperated by collecting gems dropped by downed enemies. The devastating (and renewable) power of the weapon has allowed Next Wave Team to include large numbers of deadly kamikaze enemies that would be totally unmanageable without it.

The inclusion of these weapons helps introduce an element of strategy to an otherwise entirely reflex-based genre. While good reflexes are still the deciding factor in whether or not you're successful, balancing your health meter with your XG Blast meter is perhaps equally important. Both health and power can be regained over time, but some swarms of foes will be almost unconquerable without sufficient XG Blast energy at your disposal.

Making strategic decisions with a screen full of enemies baring down on your position can be daunting, but also exhilarating. Thankfully XG Blast! does a fairly good job of easing you into the action gently, at least at first. The single player portion of the game is broken down into numerous zones, each containing a selection of arenas. Each zone is more difficult than the last, and the final arena in each zone features a mammoth boss to truly put your skills to the test.

Unfortunately, consistent difficultly balancing is not something that XG Blast! does particularly well. The aforementioned bosses, for example, vary from ridiculously easy to ridiculously brutal depending on how much XG Blast juice you have at your disposal. Standard arenas also have a habit of spiking in difficulty at the worst possible moment, a fact that wouldn't be quite so frustrating if you weren't forced to restart a zone from the beginning upon losing all of your lives.