I've had a bit of spare time recently so I've be trawling through XBLA looking for little games to pass the time... This eventually led to me picking up one of the original XBLA titles for 360, Geometry wars: retro Evolved.
For those that aren't aware the game is based on a mini-game used in Project Gotham Racing 3, a game that was so loved that it was decided it could be given a polish and sold.
The premise is very simple, you flay a two dimensional 'ship' around a square are killing all of the nicely colored pieces of geometry that cross your path.
The game is labeled as a 2D arcade shooter, and this is a fair reflection, There is no real depth on offer here but it always meant to be that way.
In my mind, especially after playing it for a while I wish someone would describe it as a survival horror :p, the difficulty this game offers both in it's gameplay and the added challenge of the achievements quickly turn this from a fun pick up and play game that defines the A in XBLA into amongst the most frustrating games i've ever played.
The game starts off nice and simple. a couple of enemies on screen, you have time to get to grips with the simplistic controls, left stick move, right stick shooting direction.
After maybe 30 seconds of this nice relaxing pace the game starts... an exponentially increasing number of enemies start to appear on the screen, black holes start pulling your ship around and it's not long before it all start to become quite overwhelming.
A couple on minutes in and the amount of enemies enveloping the screen have been such that you are left constantly on the run tryign only to clear a path into a gap you hope will still be there when you get there, there is no break and it becomes a real test of concentration, reactions, skill, planning and quite a lot of luck as well.
for all of you that remember the original mini game, you will remember the somewhat understated graphics reminiscent of a computer from the 90's and for those that don;t know what the looks like.
For those that need things to look a little more shiny the game has some really nice particle effects whilst retaining the basic geometric enemies, this put along side a decent bit of background music helps to keep the player entertained.
End of the day this was designed to be a pick up and play game, and that's exactly what it is. It offers enough of a challenge to draw in the most determined and skillful and enough action to make it enjoyable for someone looking to just pass the time.
To sum up, it does everything you expect from it, and not a great deal more, but that's plenty for it's price and the reason after 7 years it's still selling.
4.0