The evolution of a minigame found in Project Gotham Racing 2, Geometry Wars is an excellent and original arcade game.
The premise is simple. In a top down, two dimensional space, fly your “ship” around and destroy everything that moves. Sounds simple right? The controls are as simple as the premise, using nothing but the two analog sticks and the triggers. The left analog stick is used to move your ship and the right is used to fire at enemies, similar to the control scheme in Robotron 2084. The triggers are used to activate the bombs.
At the outset, you’re given three lives and three bombs, which when activated, immediately destroy every enemy on the screen. Every 75,000 points you get an extra life and every 100,000 points you’re rewarded with a new smart bomb. Every 10,000 points, you get a random weapon upgrade to either the slower spread fire weapon or the much quicker triple-shot weapon. There’s no option to choose which weapon you want so you have to change your strategy, as each weapon has its strengths and weaknesses.
Geometry Wars even manages to lull you into a false sense of security in the beginning, as you will likely find it very easy. As soon as you believe you can blaze through the game with little or no opposition, the game throws you a curve ball as he difficulty skyrockets upward. More and more enemies begin to spawn around you, to the point where you can lose track of your ship in the chaos.
As you destroy enemies, you will gain a multiplier bonus. As you destroy more and more enemies without dying, your multiplier increases to ten, meaning each kill is worth ten times as much as it normally would. Once you lose a life, your multiplier is reset to zero and amidst the frenzy of enemies appearing all around you; it can be very difficult to get back into the groove.
The graphics are a treat for the eyes. While simple in nature, the vibrant colors and the explosions that soon fill the screen are visually stunning, especially in higher resolutions. Weapon effects are particularly good looking, as each shot sends ripples through the space.
The enemy types you will encounter are numerous and require you to take different approaches to take them down. One enemy attempts to avoid direct fire and another splits into three smaller enemies once shot. Another is the black hole, which once shot, as black holes do, begin to pull in anything surrounding it, including your ship. This can work to your advantage or end up hurting you when it explodes, sending small, electroluminescent circles flying towards you. By shooting the black holes, they shrink in size until they eventually vanish giving you points depending on the number of enemies sucked in. This adds an extra layer of strategy to the game.
One problem I have is that aside from the Retro mode, which is basically a simpler version of the new and improved “Evolved” mode, there isn’t much more to the game. There’s no multiplayer mode through Live or even through same or splitscreen. The Xbox Live features are very limited as well, only featuring a leaderboard, to which your high scores are automatically uploaded. Without these things, the game seems a bit on the shallow side.
In the end, for a game costing a mere 400 Marketplace points ($5) it certainly has a great deal of depth and replayability. It’s deceptively simple and will certainly hook the hardcore but it’s simple enough for even casual gamers to enjoy. It’s easily one of the best Xbox Live Arcade games you can buy.