The Best Wii Game I've Played So Far!
When I saw Geometry Wars: Galaxies at a pretty cheap pricepoint (used), I figured Id give it a shot. From what I could tell, it was simply a game of shooting everything that moves, so it couldnt be that bad. But when I got it home I couldnt believe how quickly I got sucked-in to the gameplay. This truly is, without question, the best game Ive played on the Wii so far.
The default control scheme of the Wii-mote & Nunchuck seemed awkward to me from the get-go, so Ive been playing this with the classic controller. And with it, I feel like Im back in the arcade 25 years ago...only without the bad hair & quarters. lol!
The object of the game is simply to shoot at everything. The left stick controls your ship and the right stick fires. Most players will find themselves firing constantly, and the game accomodates for this by switching your gun from a turret to more of a controlled-laser and back every so-often. It makes for good variety in the levels. There are also bombs you can detonate using the right or left shoulder buttons, which will clear-out the screen when things get too chaotic. You only get a few of these per level, though, so you have to be smart about when to use them. (You can earn more bombs & lives as your score goes up.)
In campaign mode, youll go through each level trying to simply survive as long as you can. Enemies will come at you from all directions, and as you reach the higher levels youll encounter tougher enemies to fire at. They also will become much more numerous, creating at times a screen so full of colors and shapes that you really need to pay attention to where your ship is! Thankfully, you have a drone that helps you out. At first it simply will provide a little extra firepower for you, but as you level-up your drone it will become "smart" and begin to attack on its own.
Throughout the campaign, you will collect "geoms". These are little gold pieces left behind from most of the enemies you destroy. The geoms serve 2 purposes. First, in the game itself, each geom advances your multiplier by 1, up to a maximum of 150. If you want to attain the Gold Medal scores, you absolutely must have that multiplier maxxed as much as possible. Secondly, at the end of each game the number of geoms youve collected will be stored away as a sort of currency. Youll then use this to unlock higher levels, as well as buy different behaviors for your drone. Some of these behaviors, such as Snipe (where the drone shoots at enemies on its' own), Bait (where the drone leads some of your enemies away from your ship), and Defend (where the drone simply provides cover fire for the back-end of your ship) are crucial if you wish to succeed through the campaign. Each drone behavior has its own leveling-up process and will help you more based on how smart of a level it has attained.
All of this provides for a very satisfying and addictive experience. The levels are hard, but not frustratingly so. And leveling-up your drone doesnt take hours and hours to do. The Wii provides a terrific graphic experience, never slowing down even in the most fierce of battles. While the sound & music are just the right additions to make the gameplay even more immersive.
9.5 for a simple shooter?? YES! As someone who's been a gamer since the dawn of Pong its nice to find a modern twist on the simple "shoot until you bleed" type of game. Geometry Wars is a well-thought, extremely well-made game that harkens back to the days of Asteroids and Space Invaders. But, unlike those shooters, the graphics and gameplay here actually give you more to immerse yourself in than just getting a high score. The only thing missing here is online co-op...that would have made this a perfect 10 in my book. But still, for less than $20, this one title has given me a reason to get back to using my Wii again. I can only hope there are some other titles coming down the pipe that are this good.