From Xbox to Xbox 360, from there to the PC, Wii and DS, this week’s cheap game has made the rounds. Despite its rather pronounced presence, it’s still good, still cheap, and still worth a look.
The game is Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved for the PC. Developed originally as a mini-game within Project Gotham Racing 2 for the Xbox, chances are good that you’ve played at least one iteration of this highly popular game. However, you may not be aware that it is available on the PC, and for less money than anywhere else.
The premise is simple: shoot the shapes. Also, try not to slip into epileptic seizures. You play by moving an androgynous spaceship-like entity around a grid, all the while attempting to avoid as well as destroy any shapes that come flying at you. Collide with a shape and you die. As time goes on, you rack up points and the game becomes increasingly hectic. Extremely hectic. I find the game to be very difficult, but that doesn’t keep me from coming back to it from time to time. It also won’t keep me from recommending it to you. Even if you suck at it, you’ll have fun with it. It’s worth every penny.
The controls are as simple as the object of the game, and also customizable. You have three options: keyboard only, in which case you’ll use WASD for movement and arrow keys to shoot. With this control scheme you’re limited to 8 directions of movement, 8 directions for firing. You can also use keyboard & mouse, in which case you’ll move using WASD and fire by moving the mouse in a circle, and you will automatically fire. You can also change your settings so that you have a target reticle controlled by the mouse. In this mode you can automatically fire wherever your reticle is, or you can turn off autofire and use left click instead. I recommend this control scheme to people who lack a gamepad, which is the third method available. I personally use an Xbox 360 wireless remote in conjunction with a wireless adapter. With this scheme, you use the left and right joysticks to move and shoot. You’ll shoot in a circle around yourself, but in my experience, the “omni-firing” in this mode is somewhat deceptive. From what I can tell, you are still limited to 8 directions as you would if you were using the keyboard, but I still stick with this for comfort’s sake. In the end, try them all out, see what you think feels best.
If you’ve never played Geometry Wars on any other platforms, whether it be through Project Gotham Racing or the Nintendo versions, I’ve recorded some footage. Forgive my poor performance; the game is a bit trickier when Fraps is recording at 60FPS. Anything longer than the 3 minutes that I made it would probably not be interesting to watch anyway! Yeah, thats it…
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved can be purchased on Steam for $3.99. Alternatively, it can be purchased on Xbox Live Arcade for 400 Microsoft Points ($5), or played through Project Gotham Racing 3 on Xbox 360, which I would imagine could be found for fairly cheap by now.