Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 review (X360)

The importance of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved cannot be overstated. What started life as an in-game diversion in Project Gotham Racing 2 became the standout game for the launch of Xbox Live Arcade, and arguably for the 360 as a whole. Since then it has maintained its position as one of the best selling games on XBLA, and prompted the rebirth of the twin-stick shooter genre. It was an exercise in frenetic high score chasing – a slice of arcade heaven – and all anyone could have wanted from it was more. Thankfully Bizarre Creations has obliged, first with Waves in PGR4, then with the standard Galaxies for Wii and DS. And now, after three years Geometry Wars has finally returned to XBLA in the shape of Retro Evolved 2, and more is precisely what it delivers.

For those of you who don’t know, Geometry Wars is a game in which you control a ship fighting off waves of enemies in the form of squares, diamonds, circles and so on. Each enemy has its own colour and behaviour, as well as an individual sound when it spawns. The success of the game is down to this simple concept, the pinpoint accuracy of the control system, and the aneurysm-inducing frenzy of dazzling colour and pumping music. This formula has remained almost unchanged, with Bizarre Creations instead choosing to expand the game through different styles of play.

Geometric Progression

Retro Evolved 2 contains six modes, with each mode unlocking the next after a short period of play – a clever device which forces the player to try every mode. The first mode is Deadline – a three minute scoring frenzy with infinite lives, with both the enemy spawns and the music building frantically towards the finish. Next up is King, a single life king-of-the-hill mode where you can only fire inside designated circles on the screen. The enemies cannot enter the circles, but the moment you move inside one it starts to shrink, leaving you a short space of time to clear a hole and relocate to the next firing zone. After that, Evolved is unlocked – the mode from the original XBLA game, and then Pacifism, an expansion of the achievement in that game, awarded for surviving a minute without firing. As a mode of its own, Pacifism features a single life and a new type of enemy (or rather, obstacle) in the form of gates which explode when passed through, taking nearby enemies with them. The final two modes are Waves (the last single-life mode), which featured in PGR4, where orange triangles will pour horizontally and vertically across the screen, and Sequence. Sequence is Geometry Wars’ puzzle mode – 20 levels which always spawn in the same way, with 30 seconds to complete each level. Running out of time or losing a life moves you on to the next level, but don’t think that this is a cop out – Sequence is hard, and due to the way lives are accumulated, any early deaths will really come back to haunt you later on.

This is a point worth making because it is one of the two biggest changes to Geometry Wars’ core mechanics. Previously extra lives were gained every 75,000 points, and level-clearing bombs every 100,000. Now bombs and lives are awarded together, first at 100,000, then at 1 million, 10 million and so on. Meanwhile your points multiplier now increases through the collection of geoms – little green blobs left by exterminated enemies, and is not reset when you die. This means that over the course of a game you can achieve an insanely large multiplier, but in order to collect the geoms you must keep doubling back – a significant strategy change from the original game. Other changes are fairly minor in comparison, such as the addition of new or slightly altered enemies such as the aforementioned gates and waves, the use of a single weapon type instead of the previous three, and the gravity wells now destroying surrounding enemies when they explode.

Chaos Theory

Retro Evolved 2 also features multiplayer for up to four players – either as co-op with separate ships or co-piloting (one flying, one gunning) or competitive – for every game mode. Unfortunately multiplayer is only available offline, a decision which while somewhat understandable for a game in which speed and accuracy are so essential and a split-second of lag will probably result in death, is extremely disappointing nonetheless.

This is the only aspect of the game which can be cause for dissatisfaction however. The core gameplay is as good as it ever was, and the addition of the extra variety means that there is even more reason to keep coming back to it. Even the achievements are well thought-out – what began with Pacifism in Retro Evolved has expanded to the point where eight out of the twelve achievements require you to play in a non-standard manner, for example Wax On and Wax Off – gained for completing one and two complete circuits of the arena walls in Pacifism mode – or Phobia – scoring 1,000 points in Waves mode without collecting any geoms (much harder than it sounds). I would go so far as to say that it’s the most interesting and worthwhile use of achievements I’ve seen in any Xbox game to date, and adds the finishing touch to a game which was already brilliantly designed and executed. Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be teetering along the edge of the catastrophe curve, making a noise that sounds rather like “Oooooooooooooooooooohshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhi…!”