| Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 |
| Posted on 10th August 2008 by Sean Evans |
Two-and-a-half years later and the purist phenomenon continues. When the Xbox 360 launched, after I grew tired of Perfect Dark Zero and desperately needed quick cash for Call of Duty 2 (the things I did... shameful), alleviation in-between came from the first game to really put Xbox LIVE Arcade on the map. 360 quickly owners became familiar with the wretchedly-difficult but overly-addictive nature of mass-acclaimed Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Now, after some forgettable spin-offs on other platforms, the true sequel is finally available for download on Arcade.
The first Geometry Wars had one single mode: Retro Evolved. Its simplicity was its key, playing as the first of many twin-stick shooters to come on Arcade, pitting you against an endless host of enemy types in a single grid that would grow larger with greater succession. Granted three lives and three screen-clearing bombs, the goal was to get as many points as possible without letting up. It was brilliantly stressful gaming, and thankfully the same mode has been included in the sequel, now even more balanced in order to avoid the cheap shots the original sometimes inferred.
As well as Evolved, newer game modes have been added, including Deadline, King and Sequence. Deadline takes its cue from last year's Pacman: Championship Edition, allotting the player with unlimited lives to bust out the biggest score they can in a three-minute time window; and King restricts shooting unless the player takes stronghold in one of the many ever-changing plots on the level that gradually die away after a few seconds. Sequence is arguably the most difficult to achieve perfectly, unloading different waves of enemies at you in different formations and types, ramping up the difficulty each time. Pacifism and Waves are editions pulled from the Wii and DS versions, citing the same timing requirements that keep you on your toes the whole time. Especially Pacifism, which is probably the best of the six modes, revoking the player to movement only and placing random, wandering gates that you need to pass through while avoiding large groups of blue shapes homing at you constantly. It gets intense rather fast and demands hand-eye co-ordination of the highest caliber. Waves is inadvertently the most punishing of the bunch, shooting enemies at you from each wall, ancient-Egyptian tomb style. However, as with all modes in single-player but particularly evident when playing Waves, the camera plainly zooms in on the action, so you can't always see enemies that are being shot at you from certain parts of the grid, which can be annoying.
But what do I mean, "in single-player"? Am I insinuating there is multi-player to this game as well? Well, yes, actually. four-player co-op is indeed included, but only offline. The manic intricacies of the game would be too much to handle for any online server – it would just blow its circuits away! Still, it's a shame it isn't included, despite the 4-player co-op being sufficient enough. Plus, in multiplayer, that camera issue I mentioned is superceded by it being pulled back to show the whole grid, so all four players can see what they're doing. Why this isn't an option in single-player, though, is beyond me.
Weighing in at a practiced 800 Points as opposed to the original's cost of 400 Points, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 still packs a mighty, incentivising punch, despite leaving out online play. If you enjoyed the original, there is no doubt you will enjoy this sequel. If you didn't try out the first Geo Wars, give this a shot anyway. It doesn't completely reinvent the wheel that the first game started spinning so enthusiastically a couple years ago, but it's still ubiquitously important to Xbox LIVE Arcade and undeniably fun to play.
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Single Player Score: 9/10
Multiplayer Score: 7/10
Overall Score: 8/10 |
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