Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2

Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 is a feature rich follow up to the 2005 Xbox Live Arcade game, Geometry Wars Retro Evolved, which offers several new game modes and 4 player local coop.

The first thing veteran Geometry Wars players will notice after starting the game is that the default game mode, Deadline (the rest need to be unlocked), isn't what one would expect.  Deadline mode gives the player a three minute time limit to score as many points as possible.  The player has infinite lives but the price payed for dieing is wasted time.  Another thing veteran players will quickly notice is that the multiplier is not maintained the same way it has been in past games.  In previous Geometry Wars games the players score multiplier would increase as the player destroyed consecutive enemies without dieing.  When the player did finally die the multiplier was reset to one.  In the Retro Evolved 2, the player collects small green items dropped by destroyed enemies called geoms.  Each geom collected increases the score multiplier by one and the players multiplier is never reset.  This new method of maintaining a score multiplier can result in a multiplier in the thousands.

After a few rounds of Deadline, the next new game mode, King, is unlocked.  In this new mode the player is given one life and is presented with temporary safe zones.  Enemies and the geoms they drop cannot penetrate the zones and the player can only fire while safely within the confines of a zone.  When a player enters a zone it is activated and begins to degrade.  When a safe zone completely degrades it shrinks and disappears leaving the player unprotected and unable to fire. Fortunately, when a safe zone vanishes a new zone appears elsewhere to replace it, basically leaving 3 zones for the player to use at any given time.  

The third mode to be unlocked is Evolved, which is the classic Geometry Wars game mode with the new scoring rules.  The player begins with 3 lives and 3 bombs.  As you would expect, this mode starts out slowly but it quickly ramps up to a chaotic pace.  As the player's score increases the player is rewarded with additional lives and bombs.  When the players lives are completely depleted, the game is over.

The next mode unlocked, Pacifism, seems to have been inspired by an achievement from the previous game.  In this mode the player is again given a single life but the twist is the player is unable to fire.  Instead the player must pass through gates, which explode, to destroy nearby enemies.  

Waves is the next game mode unlocked.  In Waves the player is given one life and must survive an onslaught from a new enemy type that simply travels from one side of the grid to other in straight lines.  These non-stop waves of enemies can take up the entire width or height of the screen in an attempt to overwhelm the player.

The final game mode, Sequence, the player is given multiple lives and is presented with 20 preset levels.  The player plays each level in order and is given 30 seconds to complete each one.  If the player dies the player immediately moves on to the next level.  If the player is unable to finish a level in 30 seconds a life is lost.

At first it may seem strange that the developers felt the need to lock most of the game modes especially when you consider how easy each mode is unlocked.  However, you quickly realize the brilliance behind that decision.  They wanted every player to experience each of these new modes at least a few times.  If all modes were open from the start many people would simply find the classic mode and never look back, which would be unfortunate.  Every mode is worth a play but the modes I find myself enjoying the most are King and Pacifism.  Both modes add an interesting twist to the basic Geometry Wars formula and I like the single life aspect because it keeps the round length short, well for me at least.

Another new feature that I appreciate quite a bit is an achievement status indicator that lets the player know how close they are to unlocking one of the several interesting and challenging achievements the game offers.  For instance, one achievement challenges the player to activate 30 zones in King without firing a shot or destroying an enemy.  Once the game detects that the player has activated 10 zones without firing the game displays a counter at the bottom of the screen indicating how many zones the player has activated.  Its a great new feature and the feedback makes achieving these unique challenges a much less frustrating experience.

With Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2, Bizarre Creations sticks with the basic formula that makes Geometry Wars so great and at the same time adds plenty of variety and challenges to easily justify its $10 price tag.