Geo Wars adds another dimension of fun to the Xbox Live Arcade

User Rating: 8.3 | Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved X360
Bizarre Creations are most known for the PGR series of racing game. What most people didn’t know about them was that there is a minigame in the PGR racing games. The game is called Geometry Wars. This mini game was highly popular and played often. Now that the Xbox 360 has arrived and the games are getting upgraded, why wouldn’t Geo Wars? That’s exactly what Bizarre Creations thought. They released Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved for the Xbox Live Arcade at the launch to huge success.

There is pretty much no story going on here. The only story type of thing in this game is that you are the hero spaceship trying to defend your graph paper type homeland from the evil invading shapes that come out of no where. There goes your story right there.

The gameplay of this game is what makes the game shine. The gameplay is challenging and rewarding at the same time. You play as a small ship that floats around in a closed off rectangle. The game plays as a top down, 2-D shooter with great background physics. The basic characters are the purple stars, the blue rhombuses, the green squares that are very intelligent, the purple squares that when killed pop out 2 or 3 more little squares, the black, or should I say colorful, hole, the long orange snake things, and weird red space ships. The first part of a game has only a few stars and rhombuses. As the duration of the game wears on all the other shapes come in, and even later in the game they come in much greater numbers. At some times there are so many shapes on the screen at one time, you don’t know what the heck is going on, and that is when the bombs come in. Aside from your ships guns, which have the basic bullet, the spray bullets, and the background morphing bullets, you have bombs that will automatically destroy all the enemies on the screen. The gameplay in the game is so addicting I sometimes find myself up at 2 in the morning playing the game to see how high I can get my score. The gameplay is also very challenging which crazy explosions making the screen fill up with colors so that you can’t see crap. Most of all the gameplay is fun and will keep you coming back, over and over again.

Another strong point in Geo Wars:RE is the graphics. While the ship and shapes are simple in design the way they explode is pure generous. When one of your bullets hits an enemy shape the shape blows up in a certain color in a fireworks way. The explosion of color fills the screen while the player looks on in awe. When there is about 20 opponents on the screen at one time and a bomb goes off joy fills the room as 20 different colors blast off at the same time. The black holes are also a thing of beauty. The holes start out black with a red ring around them but when a bullet hits it the baby goes to work. The hole is a swirling pendulum of color flashing everywhere and every bullet it takes adds more colors to the festival. When there is around 4 of these going on at one time, its one of the most stunning games on the Xbox 360. Overall the graphics are the stand out point in Geo Wars with all the fun and festive colors.

The sound department of Geo Wars is the worst part of the game. There is only one song that goes on in the background that sounds like a crappy DJ make a sucky techno song and sold it for a buck to Bizarre so that they could put it in the game. Luckily there is an option to turn the music off and put on one of your own CD's instead. The sound effects in the game are fairly well made. The gunshots from the ship are the same every time but it is a fun sound. When a bomb goes off the sound gets all distorted which is a very neat effect to the game. Other than that there isn’t much sound going on in the game expects for explosion. Overall the sound is good but the music kills it.

The controls of the game are very simple and very responsive. To move your ship around you use the left thumb stick and the right thumb stick is used to control where you fire your weapon. The right trigger detonates the bomb that clears the room out. That is pretty much the only controls in the game but with them being responsive, the controls are great. When you flick your right thumb stick to shoot a stray shape, the gun fires right when you say it should right when you want it to. Overall the controls are good but very simplistic.

Geo Wars is a challenging and addicting game. If it were only a challenging game, people would throw down their controllers and move onto the next game, but since it is also addicting, you want to come back every chance you get. Personally I feel the game is too challenging sometimes which makes me not want to play it, but I always do. The leader boards let you boats or cry on how high or low your score is. Overall the game is addicting and will keep you coming back over and over no matter what.

In conclusion Geo Wars:RE is one of the most fun, challenging, and addicting games that came from the Xbox 360 launch, and its only 400 points.