It doesn’t seem possible to recreate the magic of Geometry Wars Retro Evolved. Dual stick shooters have come and went since the OG’s release that launched both LIVE and Achievements into the souls of us gamers. Most have been crap, let’s be honest. Even Waves and Galaxies passed by with barely a blip on the radar. So now Bizarre Creations was tasked with making Retro Evolved 2 even more evolved and interesting than the first. In just about every way imaginable Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 is an improvement over the original and earns its price tag. This isn’t more of the same.

The game starts you off with only Deadline mode available in single player. It’s here where you should start groaning. What unreasonable amount of points must I get to finally unlock all six modes? Instead what Bizarre has done is forced you to taste each mode for a brief time. Sitting down to unlock the modes in Geo Wars 2 is a bit like sitting down for dinner at a chef’s table. You get to enjoy each course to its fullest, but you’re not overstuffed before the Stilton cheesecake is served for dessert. Making the player only have to run through a mode a handful of times ( I unlocked the entire game in about 15-20 minutes) to move on is brilliant.



The modes themselves offer great variety and a myriad ways to lose your time. Deadline is the new default mode that the main LIVE leaderboards look at. You get three minutes to garner as many points as possible, much the same as last year’s Pac-Man Championship Edition. King offers something unexpectedly fun by placing circles throughout the level that you have to travel to. Only within those “hills” can you shoot enemies, but they decay after to time. It’s a mix of playing Evolved mode and Pacifism. Evolved has been moved down a few pegs, and is essentially the exact same game with one major upgrade. Your multiplyer never resets to zero, instead you have to collect geoms that enemy ships leave behind. This does lead to getting higher scores, but you don’t with this new system 1,000,000 is the new ultimate goal?

Pacifism is one of my favorite modes, and was inspired by the Pacifism achievement in the original game. You can’t shoot, all you do is survive. Gates have been added to the game and when you pass through they explode, taking out nearby enemies. It’s a rush to be followed by hundreds of blue diamonds as you pass through 6 gates and take all of them out. Waves is Waves as it was in PGR4…pretty much. You deal with wave after wave of enemies to gain more points, but you have to be quick enough to take out each wave as it comes lest you be overwhelmed. Finally there is Sequence. It’s a nice little addition to make pseudo stages and levels for those who feel the need to progress through a game. There’s nothing wrong with sequence, I just found it unnecessary.

It’s true that all of these modes are available for four-player offline coop. And yes, I find it disheartening that the game excludes the wonders that would be online play. Spend 15 minutes with the game and all of the hairpin maneuvers and insane amount of effects, you might understand how difficult getting online to work with Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2would be. I’m still upset by it. But the offline coop does offer lots of fun options. You can play 2 v 2 for score, or as individuals. There’s the option to have one guy drive and the other shoot, which will probably lead to lots of fights. Overall the multiplayer is far more satisfying than it needs to be considering what a time suck single player is.

Geo Wars 2 has reopened the arms of XBLA to its former devoted fans. The ones who thought maybe the Arcade was getting stale and offered nothing new and interesting. Online leaderboards are displayed right on the Mode selection screen, defaulting to your Friends list so you know that you just need another 4 million in Pacifism to top the guy right above you. For those who couldn’t get into the original you should be aware that the enemies come fast and furious a lot quicker than before. It’d take minutes before I had to worry about a screen full of enemies in the old game, now within a minute I’m swarmed by annoying green following guys and pesky pink break aparters.



When it comes right down to it, Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 is a damn fine game. It offers enough new, refined, content to bring fans back and plenty of tweaks to gameplay that could convince past naysayers to give it a try. I’m not sure how to create a sequel to a twin stick shooter, the concept appears to simplistic to even contemplate doing anything new. But Bizarre Creations took on the challenge, succeeded, then made you cry as you realized you had 50 million points to go in Deadline to get anywhere near the top of the leader boards. It’s ok though, because you’ve got a Friends List to dominate.

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