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Bezier: Second Edition Review

8
Short and memorable

“Eat bananas and die!”

Not something you expect a boss to shout at you, but players of Bezier will come to expect it. The game’s a twin-stick shooter that can best be described as Geometry Wars if it lost its mind. Your spaceship even looks similar to the one in Geometry Wars, with the weird little claw-shaped cockpit and long glowing tail.

Bezier: Second Edition is a revamped version of the original Bezier, which came out on PC way back in 2016. While the general gameplay experience is the same enemy-zapping fun, the game itself seems expanded, there are more power-ups, and the UI has been completely changed.

5th dimensional

As for the gameplay itself (for anyone who hasn’t played the original or Geometry Wars), as mentioned Bezier is a twin-stick shooter. You pilot a little spaceship from a top-down perspective in a box-like map in space, shooting many different types of enemies to get the best score you can across different levels. 

The controls are straightforward. Left stick moves the ship, right stick shoots in the direction you point. Holding any face button activates a more powerful auto-aim blaster to get you out of tight situations, although it overheats quickly so you can’t abuse it. Either left trigger applies an upgrade point (which appear as yellow stars) to a power-up, although you can choose to stack these to gain access to better powers. The right triggers activate that power-up.

In each level, there’s a timer, with the goal of staying alive and destroying Shields – little armoured fortresses that can only be beaten in a specific way. If you haven’t defeated all the Shields when the timer runs out, you die. Enemies get tougher, more varied (there are an insane amount of them) and more numerous as the timer moves along, culminating in a boss called Domus that you can’t kill until the end of the game.

Short and sweet-ish

It’s all simple, addictive stuff, and the worst thing you can say about it is that screens can get incredibly cluttered at times. If this was all Bezier was it’d be good for a few hours of fun, but things are a bit more complicated. There are 15 zones altogether, and while you only have to play five to face Domus, which five you choose can radically alter the enemies and even events you face. On my second playthrough, I encountered another ship like mine who actually fought alongside me – until they got brainwashed into fighting me and I had to kill them. 

There are many cool moments and secrets throughout Bezier that make it more special than just an ordinary shooter, not to mention the fantastic soundtrack. As addictive as it is, though, I’m not sure it’s worth £20 for what is still quite a short game, especially as the original’s on Steam for just £7. There are more difficulty modes, an Endurance mode, a Daily Challenge that’s tied into a fun fact about the date, and plenty of secrets to find, but Bezier’s not a game you’re going to play for hours upon hours. A short, memorable, replayable experience isn’t a bad thing, though, and the game’s as fun as it is weird, which is a lot.

“Feel my clunking fist!”