
The gates from Waves are here as well - able to reflect your shots, or act as a localised smart bomb when flown through, their yellow tips are nonetheless deadly to your ship. So too does Waves, the variation that graced PGR4, bringing with it the orange rockets that travel back and forth in fixed lines across the screen. The Evolved mode, familiar from the first game, returns. It's also completely different, in numerous ways. For those waiting in the wings to scoff, "It's just the same, innit?" - yes, it is the same as Geometry Wars. Geometry Wars 2 is as carefully improved a sequel as you could hope to find. A four-way King match - head for the safety of the circles.īizarre Creations knows what they're doing, however. The shift from cool extra to triple-A status was remarkably organic, and there's always the fear that, in attempting to recapture lightning in the same bottle, mistakes can be made, ambitions can overrun, delicate balances can be lost.
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What was once a throwaway unlockable in a driving game is now a beloved series in its own right. That doesn't say much for the competition, but it has put pressure on Bizarre Creations. Now, three years on, Geometry Wars 2 is easily one of the most anticipated titles on Microsoft's nascent digital delivery service.

In both gameplay and design, it's a template that has been copied far too many times by lesser Live Arcade games - all of which seem to favour of mayhem and noise, missing the subtleties that make Geometry Wars so great.

As more and more enemies spawn in ever-increasing numbers, the pace of play is matched only by the dazzling visual overdose swamping your eyeballs. You must blast them all, and you do this by moving with the left stick, and guiding your fire with the right.Įvery movement, every explosion sends ripples of colour and light echoing across the playfield. Enemies, represented by coloured geometric shapes, spawn and exhibit different behaviour depending on their form. You are a little crab-shaped spaceship in an oblong black playfield. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that most people will know what Geometry Wars entails, but for the sake of the unfortunate few here's the nutshell version.

After it was reworked as a standalone release, the mixture of dazzling visuals and moreish gameplay swiftly established it as the standard bearer for downloadable console gaming. Originally a fun little extra tucked away inside Project Gotham Racing 2, it was the perfect bite-sized burst of fun to showcase Xbox Live Arcade when 360 hit the shelves. The success of Geometry Wars has been something of a happy accident.
