Hidden away in the garage of Bizarre's Project Gotham Racing 2 was a small arcade cabinet containing a simple shooting game called Geometry Wars. Designed by Stephen Cakebread, Geometry Wars was a sort of homage to twin stick shooters such as Robotron 2084 and Smash TV, featuring a small ship that needed to blast various coloured shapes into oblivion. In 2005, Bizarre released Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, an enhanced version of the original game with new enemies and spectacular HD graphics. The game was an instant hit on the new Xbox Live Arcade service, and held the record of most downloaded title for quite some time.

With the popularity of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved on the Xbox 360, it was only a matter of time before someone attempted to release the game across multiple platforms. We have seen the game pop up on Steam and mobile phones, and an updated version (Geometry Wars: Waves) in Project Gotham Racing 4, but Kuju Entertainment and Sierra have teamed up to take Geometry Wars one step further. Geometry Wars: Galaxies introduces an extensive single-player campaign, several multiplayer modes and a few new elements to shake things up for veterans of the previous games. Simply put, if you are after Geometry Wars with a little extra depth, then Geometry Wars: Galaxies may well be what you are looking for.

Much like the rest of its ilk, Geometry Wars: Galaxies is a pretty unconventional yet spectacular looking game. It is simplistic by nature, with bright, neon coloured shapes on a relatively plain looking background – however, as levels go on, the enemies come thicker and faster and the explosions and light effects seem almost endless. Those coming from the PC or Xbox Live Arcade versions may be a little offended at the lower resolution graphics (progressive scan and widescreen modes are offered) and the extra panning across the field of play, but the game is every bit as beautiful as its predecessors and completely free of slowdown. Geometry Wars: Galaxies also features a selection of pumping techno tracks in a similar vein to the original theme from Retro Evolved – good for the ears, and gets the adrenaline going.

Geometry Wars: Galaxies makes pretty good use of the Wii's control capabilities, offering options that should please everybody. This reviewer found (unexpectedly) that the remote and nunchuck actually proved to be the superior control option. The nunchuck moves the craft, while the remote controls a reticule floating around the ship – simply move the reticule in the direction you wish, and press a button to fire. The classic controller offers an experience similar to what you would get from playing the game with a 360 controller, but the remote combo seems to allow for faster firing movement when the two methods are compared.

The Galaxies part of the name stems from the single-player campaign, which has players journeying through seven different galaxies, each with its own set of planets. There are 64 planets in all, though only 57 are available to those who do not have access to a copy of the Nintendo DS version of the game, which is a bit of a gyp. Each planet consists of a unique playing field – where the field in Retro Evolved was nice and rectangular, the fields in Geometry Wars: Galaxies are quite variable in form. Fields come in many different shapes and sizes; some are larger while others are smaller, some contain objects to impede your success while others contain objects while can help you on your way. New enemies work their way into some planets, the most notable of which is the carrier, which is much like a Russian matryoshka doll; breaking into smaller pieces each time it is destroyed, before exploding into a bunch of really small units. Each level has three different medal goals based on score – only bronze is needed for a planet to be considered complete, but there is no doubt that veterans of Retro Evolved will want to try for the tougher gold medals.

Several changes to the core gameplay are made in the Galaxies mode. The multiplier system has been altered – rather than being based on time, the multiplier is now raised by collecting Geons, little bits of debris left behind after destroying an enemy. Whereas the multiplier in Retro Evolved was capped at 10, Geometry Wars: Galaxies allows your multiplier to increase up to 150. Purists might scoff at such a generous increase, but many planets have medal score requirements in excess of 100 million points, which would be simply unfeasible to achieve under the old system. Geons also act as the game's currency, allowing players to unlock new galaxies and planets as they progress through the game.

The player now has a drone which follows them around and assists with destroying enemies, not unlike the option in the Gradius games. Geometry Wars: Galaxies takes the concept a step further by allowing the player to assign a certain type of behaviour to their drone at the start of a level. Attack will cause the drone to attack, defend will have the drone follow the player and destroy ships that get too close, bait will cause the drone to lead ships away from the player, collect will cause the drone to pick up Geons for the player, and so on. Only the attack drone is available from the start, with all other behaviours having to be purchased. Drones are also levelled up based on how often they are used – sometimes they make the game seem a little easy, but other times having a highly developed defence drone can really save your bacon.

There is no doubt that unlocking and getting a medal on each planet will take a great deal of time, but Geometry Wars: Galaxies also features some extra multiplayer content as well as the full version of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Versus and cooperative modes are on offer; versus has players competing head to head based on score, while cooperative play has players sharing lives and bombs, encouraging teamwork to establish a high score. High scores can be posted on the online leaderboards provided by Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connect service. Unfortunately the leaderboards are the only thing offered by said service – there's no online multiplayer on offer. The co-operative mode is a bit limited too, with only one galaxy available to play through. A demo version of Retro Evolved can also be transferred to a Nintendo DS console through the options menu, which is a cool touch.


Geometry Wars: Galaxies is far more than just a fancy version of Retro Evolved at a higher price, but at the same time the gameplay on offer is very much focused on obtaining high scores and unlocking medals, which could prove too shallow or repetitious for some players. Those who liked Retro Evolved will have to make a few small concessions on things such as resolution and extra panning on the play field, but the extra content on offer is well worth their time. For everyone else, whether or not Geometry Wars: Galaxies is worth the cost of admission really comes down to how much you enjoy old school shooting games, but it comes highly recommended.