Reviewed: October 15, 2007
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud
Publisher
Eidos Interactive
Developer
Strawdog Studios
Released: September 19, 2007
Genre: Puzzle Action
Players: 1-4
6
6
5
5
5.5
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Geon: Emotions is yet another puzzle game trying to break into the hopelessly addictive puzzle genre but coming up short. In a novel way Geon: Emotions combines puzzle gaming with head to head multiplayer duels trying to beat the other player or computer opponent gobbling up their dots or emotes and scoring a goal.
Geon: Emotions brought to you by Strawdog Studios and Eidos could have left out the cutesy emotions themes and picked something more basic as you have some silly concepts in the game. You use emotions as a theme with each emotion you pick at the start of a match being your themed offense or defense bonus.
On each board that can be pretty large with off shoots and peninsula sections you have these emotion pieces called emotes that you have to run your block over and gobble up. Once you have gobbled up enough you can flip to the other side of the board that your opponent is on and score a goal. Matches are from 1-5 goals in a few different game types and include Powerball’s with special abilities.
Gameplay for Geon: Emotions comprises of you picking which emotion you will play as and then rolling your way around one of 24 boards to score goals. You play against other players in the multiplayer games or against the computer with several choices in game types including duals against the computer or others in both split screen and multiplayer over XBox Live.
With the addition of emotions as a bonus and the several Powerball’s on the screen that can help your side and hinder your opponent they have added some gameplay style and challenge but not enough to make the game worth more than a cursory glance. The original game concept is fine but there is nothing more than a timed race to get the goals and a little variety in the Powerball’s.
There are eight Powerball’s that do various things like block your opponent or speed you up and the emotion you picked with the matching Powerball will increase the time or effectiveness of that Powerball. Other than a few unique gameplay twists the Emotions don’t really do much and the Powerball’s don’t add that much variety.
The Powerball’s are not exactly game altering but can give you a slight advantage. The emotion you pick is aligned with one of the Powerball’s and your choice would be more dependent on the Powerball you prefer to use while playing. The emotion theme is just more of a way to call the Powerball’s something than an actual part of the games style or gameplay.
The gameplay is pretty fast but not so much that you can’t keep up but the games style and visuals do not add to the game but make it a bit more difficult. I really found the game pretty interesting from the start but not enough so to keep my interest for very long. Other than the various boards and Powerball’s there is nothing to add variety to the game once you have played for very long.
The board is hard to see with all the various glowing and translucent parts and seeing what the emotion Powerball’s are is sometimes difficult while playing. The entire package is very modern with a techno feel to it and the boards are well designed and laid out intelligently. The visuals and graphics are fine but can be a bit hard to see what the different Powerball’s are at times especially when you have some of the more elaborate boards with lots of off shoots and little peninsula’s.
On occasion the camera view can be obscured through the board parts when you have things like the loops and little parts that are at a different level. Other than a few obscured parts or the difficulty of seeing and interpreting the Powerball’s there was no problems with the graphics at all. The game is rather fast paced but with little in the way of graphical challenges for the XBox so there are no problems with frame rates or any other graphical glitches.
The music played during your games and in the menus between is pretty catchy modern techno music without any problems but it’s pretty common as well. While there were no problems with the music there would be the repetitive factor after playing the game for a while but it is not so annoying that you would want to turn off the sound completely so it is not so bad. There is not much to say about the music or sound other than it works well and has no problems but is nothing fantastic.
After playing through the game on the single player settings and doing some of the different mini challenges you would want to try out the multiplayer whether online or with another person. The games style and small puzzle adventure is pretty fun especially against another person as compared to the computer opponent.
As a small puzzle game for ten dollars it would be hard for me to recommend this unless you enjoy this sort of game. After playing the game for several hours I think you would pretty much be done but hey, it’s your money.
Geon: Emotions is a pretty cute and easy to learn puzzle game on Xbox Live but nothing spectacular or addicting. The game uses the Pac-Man style of gobbling up points or little balls to get you to the other side of the board where you can score your goals. Other than an interesting new concept there is not much here for any lasting gameplay.