Honestly I thought Activision would be a one hit iPhone wonder with Call of Duty World At War Zombies, but this game proved me I was BEYOND wrong.

Geometry Wars: Touch for iPad ($9.99)

Many have tried but not even a handful came close to it. Now the original has arrived doing nothing but torching everything that attempted to be “it”. Ladies and gents, Geometry Wars Touch shows us how to “get er done”!

Presentation

It’s Geometry Wars, surely you recognize the art style from somewhere (even if you haven’t played Geometry Wars before). The iPad version is similar to “GW: Retro Evolved 2″ on XBLA. Visually, the game is a gorgeous experience on the iPad’s larger screen, complete with particle effects everywhere you turn.

Speaking of particle effects, you WILL be able to tell why the iPad was chosen as its first destination and not the iPhone (read: memory hog-ish). The animations and graphics are as intense and possibly one of the games we’ve seen push the iPad to its limits, at least that’s how it looked to me.

Controls

Just like you would imagine from your typical two stick shooter, the stick on the left is used to move, and the one on the right to fire. Sadly, Geometry Wars does not escape the doomed fate of dual stick shooters on iPad. Although with time you get used to them, it just feels odd, and your thumbs often drift off into the larger border and of the touchscreen area.

An alternative to this would be placing the iPad on a table and controlling it hat way. Thankfully the full left and right screen can be touched to create your custom controls location. The controls aren’t horrible, they definitely are playable, but dual stick shooters won’t be as golden as they were on the iPhone.

Gameplay

Geometry Wars is an arcade shooter, and like all the ports to different platforms, the iPad version proves faithful to the series. There is a bit of a issue with the controls, as mentioned above, because a lot of the times my thumbs will go off screen and I often die. Still, it’s a fun game. Geometry Wars Touch comes with 7 different game modes, you unlock each as you progress.

• Deadline: Score as high as you can in three minutes of play with unlimited lives.
• King: With one life and no bombs, master the enemies moving from safe zone to safe zone.
• Evolved: Basically Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.
• Pacifism: With one life and no weapons, wipe out enemies by flying through explosive gates.
• Waves: With one life, dodge or destroy an onslaught of enemies in wall formation, coming from all directions.
• Sequence: Destroy all enemies in each of 20 progressive levels.
• Titans: Pulverize large enemies into more and more smaller ones — basically Asteroids.

Playing this, like other games, on the iPad is a pretty unique experience. It’s not like a PC or Mac, or console where you are pressing keys, you are essentially holding up this monitor to your face and touching, tapping, etc. to control it. It feels very awesome and natural. That however, despite being good and all, in this case, sadly isn’t all that better.

Suggestion

Are you kidding me? The game is bananas! WHO am I to suggest anything?

Conclusion

Control issues aside (which is more due to the design of the device), Geometry Wars Touch stays faithful to the Geometry Wars series, and control issues aside, is a quite enjoyable iPad game. If you have a iPad, I recommend you shell out the $10 for it, just because visually, it’s eye candy and inside, it’s just iPad gaming crack!