Game Stooge

REVIEW: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 (Xbox 360)

• Scribbled on August 10th, 2008 by Jonah Falcon
• Filed in Action, Microsoft Xbox 360, Reviews, Xbox Live Arcade

Bizarre Creations’ original Geometry Wars Retro first appeared on Project Gotham Racing 2, and then became the first must-buy Xbox Live Arcade title as Geometry Wars Retro Evolved, featuring faux-vector graphics and fast-paced action. Now, the third edition - if one excludes the Galaxies for the Wii and Waves on Project Gotham Racing 4 - is out, and while it is double the price, it features three times the gameplay modes (if one considers the inclusion of the original GW in Retro Evolved.) Most of the gameplay styles are unique enough to warrant its own paragraph, so we’ll break each down one by one.

However, there is one major change to the game that permeates the entire gameplay and improves upon the original: geoms. Geoms are little objects that are dropped by killed enemies, and that directly increase the score multiplayer with each captured. The multiplier no longer resets when a player dies, which creates a whole new dynamic to gameplay. Do you risk picking up geoms to increase your scoring? If you don’t, your score is severely hampered. While it doesn’t affect the basic marathon mode, Evolved, which is similar gameplay to the original with a few new enemies, it does affect the Deadline mode.

The Deadline mode takes a page from Pac-Man Championship Edition in which the game is a strict 3 minutes in length. If you want to get the big scores, you must not only be efficient in killing enemies, but picking up their geoms as well. The player has unlimited lives, but death is hampered by the pause in gameplay. Bombs that destroy all enemies are more strategic, in that they don’t score any points, but they allow the player to pick up all the geoms dropped without worrying about getting killed.

King is a sort of “King of the Hill” mode in which the player can only fire from safe circular zones that eventually vanish after a player enters them. The game quickly becomes a game of cat-and-mouse in which the player has to scamper to safe zones while picking up geoms, clearing the way to the next zone and darting towards it. One of the most difficult Achievements is the “Treaty” achievement, in which the player must enter 30 zones without firing a shot. At around 25, the blue diamonds are actually faster than the ship, so making the achievement becomes dodgy at that point, especially since at that point the screen is crowded with enemies. Only one life, so the danger is heightened.

Pacifism is similar to the previous mode, except the player can’t fire at all as spawning blue diamonds follow the ship everywhere. The only defense is flying through exploding gates to thin out the enemies. The gameplay is a little broken, but it’s a fun mode. Again, only one life.

It’s not as fun a mode as Waves, which is a virtual duplicate of the aforementioned game found in PGR4, in which it’s a deceptively simple mode: waves of horizontally and vertically orange arrow ships (escapees from Asteroids?) appear, and the player most blow holes in the oncoming ships that increase in frequency, with the occasional enemie from Evolved appearing to give the player something else to think about. The mode offers the illusion of easiness, when in fact after the first 4 waves, it becomes devilishly hard - which adds to the fun factor. Only one life, again.

Sequence is the last mode, and like Waves, deceptively easy but hard as well. It’s a limited time game, so scoring is based on your cleverness as much as your survival ability. There are 20 boards which feature the exact same patterns (varied only slightly by where your ship is at the start of the level), and you must clear it in 30 seconds. The patterns are evocatively beautiful as well. One of the best Achievement in the game is on this board: “Smile”, in which you form a smile on the game board by letting time expire on 2 boards and getting deliberately getting killed in 6 others. You can see how it’s done in this video.

Overall, the game is pure arcade joy, as the first one was, but this time allows you to pick a mode you love most and go with it. It’s well worth the $10 and it’s quick-and-easy gameplay will allow you to squeeze off a round or two when you’re harried with work and need to relax. If you have Arcade, buy it. Now.