Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 review video (Xbox Live Arcade)

15 August 2008

Posted by:Ferry

Experience the adrenaline rush from playing the latest version of the frenetic retro shooter Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2. New features include six action-packed gameplay modes, new enemies, new scoring strategies, and a diverse list of exciting achievements. If that’s not crazy enough for you, try multiplayer mayhem for up to four players. Use power-ups in versus mode to boost your stats or handicap your opponent, or team up with others in co-op mode. Play it all in razor-sharp 1080p to new pulse-pounding music. Unlock all six of these innovative and challenging modes — Deadline, Evolved, King, Pacifism, Waves, and Sequence. Achievements: Go for 12 entertaining and inventive ways to boost your gamerscore. Geoms: Collect Geoms to increase your multiplier — but act fast, they won’t last forever! New enemies: Shoot down all the usual suspects, then say “Hello” to new enemies that have found additional ways to hunt you down.

Find out all about the sequel to Xbox Live Arcade’s best seller Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.

Click on the bottom-right corner arrow to view it fullscreen.

Blasting up the grid with the Xbox 360 shape shooter. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 from Bizarre Creations is on Xbox Live. Here’s more talk about it.

To quote the video review: “Devotees will immediately recognize Retro Evolved 2′s myriad improvements: friend leaderboards are displayed automatically in the menus and during matches, more dynamic music, multipliers don’t reset when you die, and far smoother, more intensely colorful visuals. But it’s also no longer as much of a game that anyone can pick up and have five minutes of frustration-free fun with — the difficulty increases much more rapidly than before, and it often feels like it’s trying to kill you. It’s a Geometry Wars game for Geometry Wars fans, and it offers all of the challenge and multiplayer functionality that they’d want — but, by that same token, it’s not quite as beautifully simple. All of the new modes are great, but none feel quite as balanced or as fresh as Retro Evolved.

So how do you make a worthy sequel to such a landmark game? I’m not sure, but Bizarre Creations crafted one fine arcade game nonetheless — a bargain at $10 — that’s jam-packed with enough shape-shooting to last lifetimes. The original Retro Evolved was a great early example of how much fun XBLA could be, and Retro Evolved 2 is a very clear picture of where the service stands now: It’s not sure where it wants to go, but it’s always, always entertaining.”

Overall — 9.1