March 4th, 2010 by Jason
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved for the Xbox 360
After the squint at Geometry Wars previously, it seemed only fair to sit down with the game it evolved into; Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved for the Xbox 360 was one of the earliest Xbox Live Arcade releases for the machine and went on to spend a considerable amount of time perched at the top of the sales totem – and despite that success, somehow the games industry still insists that nobody wants to buy 2D shoot ‘em ups…?!
The gameplay in GW: Retro Evolved is pretty much faithful to the Xbox original, the player has a spaceship reminiscent of the claw from Tempest and must survive in a neon battlefield for as long as possible whilst various types of enemy materialise and attempt to blow it to smithereens. As before, control is with the two analog sticks on the Xbox 360 controller with the default scheme having the left stick moving the ship around the play area, the right handling the multi-directional firing and at those moments when things get really desperate (assuming the stock hasn’t already been depleted), the triggers kick off a smart bomb that will flatten everything currently visible in a flurry of multi-coloured sparks.
Uh-oh, that black hole looks annoyed...
The action is truly intense, the game rarely lets up once things have got going and can handle a significantly higher number of attackers, player bullets and retina-burning explosions than its predecessor without even a hint of slow-down. All of the enemies from the original have been brought over and retain their distinctive movement patterns; cyan diamonds relentlessly drift towards the player, black holes suck in other matter and explode into a shower of swarming circles if they reach critical mass, green squares avoid the player’s gun but sneak up behind the ship… basically, just about everything wants to get up close and personal with the player and not in a friendly “fancy going to the pub” kind of way. And now that the play area has been enlarged and is no longer confined to a single screen, the player either needs to roam around literally looking for trouble unless they fancy running the risk of an off-screen black hole unexpectedly going critical just when it really isn’t convenient.
Audio has been beefed up a bit to add a soundtrack to accompany the spot effects, but the simplistic nature of the graphics mean that, apart from there being lots more of everything and the objects being a smidgeon larger, there isn’t a lot of difference visually between this and the first Geometry Wars apart from the background grid that warps and distorts as black holes and player bullets move over it. As with all XBLA games, GW: Retro Evolved has achievements, although most are score-based, appropriate for a game design built primarily around the scoring but probably not as inventive as they could have been so possibly not as interesting for achievement chasers. But Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved does what it sets out to, deliver some truly mental blasting action with over-the-top pyrotechnics for very little wonga.
Take that snakey!
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved is available from XBLA for 400 MS points or on a shiny disc as part of the first Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged compilation – and they’ve included the original Geometry Wars too, bargain!
Tags: Evolved, Geometry Wars, retro, Xbox 360 Software
Posted in Xbox 360 Software | No Comments »
February 18th, 2010 by Jason
Atari Paddle
Ah, the Atari 2600… those low resolution graphics, primary colours and raw sounds evoke so many emotions in people of a certain age (and yes, I’m one of them) so it’s quite hard to resist a bit of tat when it comes along. I’ve already had a look at the Atari 10-in-1 (a few weeks over one year back, in fact) and now, through the miracle of our local market, here’s another device to examine.
There are thirteen games included in total, Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Casino, Circus Atari, Demons to Diamonds, Night Driver, Steeple Chase (I’ve never actually caught a steeple), Street Racer, Super Breakout, Video Olympics (which in turn houses the seminal Pong) and Warlord are all Atari 2600 games and as a bonus the hardware also simulates the coin-op versions of Pong and Warlords. All of these games were originally designed to make use of paddle controllers and, despite having played versions of some of them with the previous unit, it makes all the difference. Similarly, having the option of two players for the Video Olympics games and Pong is a Godsend, the single player AI included is still about as disinterested in the prospect as the one included with the 10-In-1 but with a second controller present it’s thankfully no longer the only option.
Got to Breakout of this place
The actual hardware is… well, “chunky” is a good description since player one gets daddy paddle and player two is left holding the baby (which, if my memory serves, is a reasonably accurate copy of the original design). The disparity coming from the insertion of the NES on a chip hardware and a battery compartment into one of the controllers. It’s not actually an issue as such because the controller itself works fine and the overall build quality is pretty high, but I’ll just lay money that it’s already caused all manner of arguments about who is using the house brick of a controller and what advantage or otherwise the person complaining believes that entails.
It doesn't exactly look like a 2600 here!
Looking through the list of games, there are a few stand out titles; Circus Atari is still excellent and, of course, benefits from being on its native controller rather than being modified for joystick use, Breakout and Super Breakout are tough but playable, both versions of Warlords are enjoyable (although the visuals and attention to detail of the arcade version makes it the one to play) but Casino is somewhat bizarre at multiple levels – quite why it was released with paddle control in the first place is open to debate and what it’s doing buried amongst all the arcade action. Oh, and it would appear that I still can’t play Night Driver for toffee even after all these years…
Bruuum - eeeeeee!
As with the Atari 10-In-1 this really is a device to cash in on late 1970’s nostalgia, the standard of accuracy is a little higher than the previous effort (presumably because a different studio handled the work, Digital Eclipse have an established track record as regards emulation and 2600 homebrew legend Thomas Jentzsch is credited as well) and, although some of the games included do seem to be “filler” (or more likely the only other examples of paddle-operated games after the good stuff was already included), generally speaking there’s a good selection of titles to play and the Breakouts, Circus Atari, Pong and Warlords alone make the entire thing worth what is currently a low asking price, so the rest is pretty much a bonus.
Simulating the arcade version of Warlords
The Atari Paddle (I’m not sure it has an official name) is still available from online retailers and eBay, but I got mine for three quid on a second hand stall at the local market.
Tags: Atari, Breakout, Circus Atari, Demons to Diamonds, Digital Eclipse, DTV Gaming, Jakks Pacific, Night Driver, Pong, Steeplechase, Street Racer, Super Breakout, Video Olympics, Warlords
Posted in DTV Gaming | No Comments »
January 28th, 2010 by Jason
Geometry Wars on the Xbox.
Ah Geometry Wars… for those who aren’t aware, the original game in the franchise was released for the Xbox and buried away deep within Project Gotham Racing 2 (that’s why there isn’t a “pack shot” on this review) where players wandering around the in-game garage were rewarded for their adventurous spirit by finding a coin-op against one of the walls. The irony of course is that despite being from an A list developer and published by Microsoft themselves, Geometry Wars is pretty much an indie game that was originally thrown together by programmer Stephen Cakebread as a fun way to test some new joypad code – it proved so popular around the Bizarre Creations offices that they decided to make it available to the games playing public and from that decision something of a twin stick shooting, vectorised monster was born!
The player has a little spaceship and must blow the hell out of anything else that gets in the way of their guns. Simple stuff to describe yes, but incredibly hard to achieve with any level of success because the various enemy types are pretty hard to take down; each geometrical assailant has a distinct method of attack and some require more attention than others, black holes try to suck everything around them in including the player, crossed purple squares split into smaller and faster moving versions of themselves, cyan diamonds chase the player around the screen and so forth. When things get too hectic (and they’re going to start doing that extremely rapidly) there’s a limited stock of smart bombs available to clear the screen and avert death.
It tastes all wriggly.
Okay, so it’s nowhere near the original IP that Bizarre Creations seem to believe (they sent out cease and desist emails regarding clones of the sequel Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved) and it’s fair to say that the action itself is inspired by Robotron: 2084 with the smart bomb installed from Defender, the graphical style by vector-based games such as Star Castle or Tempest and to be honest it’s more “retro inspired” than honest to goodness retro (since the twin stick controls are analog and the sheer amount of stuff moving around would make the average 8-bit grind to a halt) but it holds together well because it’s unpretentious, easy to pick up and generally good fun – in fact I’ll be totally honest here and admit that my purchase of a second hand Xbox was pretty much because I wanted to play this game and I’ve never regretted that decision.
My God, it's full of... particles!
The original Geometry Wars is an Xbox exclusive, to play it you’ll need Project Gotham Racing 2 – a second hand copy should set you back just a couple of pounds and the main game is also worth playing.
Tags: Geometry Wars, Project Gotham Racing 2, Xbox Software
Posted in Xbox Software | No Comments »
