Geometry Wars Evolved 2

Deadline

The first mode is Deadline. This is also the mode which is unlocked in the trial version of the game (both single and multiplayer). The idea is simple: score as many points as you can in 3 minutes. You have as many lives as you want, but of course if you die a lot then you won't be scoring as many points as the next guy. You also have bombs, but these are limited (you start with three).

Destroyed enemies drop Geoms (little glittery yellow things) which you can pick up by driving your ship over them. These Geoms increase your score multiplier, so grab as many of these as you possibly can! Every game mode has Geoms, and you should always pick them up. I can't stress this enough: pick up the Geoms to score big! Your multiplier is no longer capped at 10x either, so having multipliers of many thousands is quite normal (if you're good enough)!

King

This mode is easy to explain, but very tactical once you start to really get into it. Again the premise is very basic: circular "zones" appear all over the grid. You can drive into these zones, and whilst inside them you are safe (the enemies can't enter the zones). You can shoot outwards, destroying the baddies outside your zone. However (and it's a big HOWEVER), after a short time the zone will collapse and you'll be left exposed. Whilst outside a zone you can't shoot at all, meaning that you had better hot foot it to another zone as quickly as you can!

Try to collect a bunch of Geoms as you move between the zones. If you're playing with a friend in co-operative mode, try this tactic: one of you stay inside the zone shooting outward, whilst the second player collects the fallen Geoms. Then swap when the zone decays. That's the trick to scoring big in co-op!

Evolved

You can think of Evolved as a super charged version of Retro Evolved 1. You start with three lives and three bombs, and you keep playing until those lives run out. There are quite a few changes this time though... here's the short list:

* New enemies make an appearance, like the gates, rockets, etc.
* Overall balance has been changed, so the game gets more exciting after a shorter amount of time (no more spending the first three minutes of the game waiting for it to get intense!)
* No more multiple weapon types. We nuked the first "starter" weapon from GWRE1, as well as the big, slow gun. The only weapon that you'll use throughout GWRE2 is a tweaked version of the faster-firing weapon (which was pretty much the fan favourite to begin with anyway).
* Tiny spinners (the little purple guys which split from the big spinners) no longer track the player. They stay rotating in one spot, acting more like a "blocker" than a normal "follower" type enemy.
* Gravity wells now destroy enemies on exploding! Not only that, but it'll give you 5x the score for the privilege! Gravity Wells should now be a priority to take out when things get busy. Note: destroying enemies in gate explosions (and bouncing bullets off of gates) also gives the same 5x score bonus.
* Repulsars have a new look, and slightly changed behaviour. They no longer repulse your bullets, but they are still only vulnerable from the backside.
* Lives and bombs are still given once you reach a set score, but this time the gap between them gets exponentially larger each time. In other words the first extra life/bomb is given at 100,000, then the second at 10 times this amount, and the third at 10 times that amount.
* Of course, "Snake spawn" is no longer an issue.

Unlocking more modes...

The first (and only) game mode available to you when you first start GWRE2 is Deadline. More modes are unlocked one at a time as you play. The game is a little bit clever about unlocking modes though... if you are totally awesome and rack up some really high scores then you'll find that King unlocks after two or three games of Deadline. If you're not so super awesome, then it'll take five or six attempts.

Once you've unlocked the game in single player it then becomes available to play in multiplayer with up to three friends.

Even still, if's perfectly possible to unlock all game modes fairly quickly if you want to sample all that GWRE2 has to offer in a short time. Don't think that unlocking Sequence equals the end of the game though; just like Retro Evolved 1, it's all about the replayability!

Eighthours wrote:Wow, those Gamercards are awesome.

ladybayred wrote:Particularly proud of my King score!