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!