Geometry Wars Waves

A closer look at the next Bizarre retro shooter...

You've all heard by now that PGR4 will ship with another mini-game in it. That mini-game is Geometry Wars Waves, a frantic new take on what you know and love from Retro Evolved. Here's the lowdown...

So what's it all about then? Well consider it an extreme, action packed new take on classic GW gameplay. If you loved playing Retro Evolved until the early hours of the morning then the chances are you'll have just as many sleepless nights with Waves! If you've never played a Geometry Wars game before you might want to go back and give Retro Evolved a play, as GW Waves pulls absolutely no punches.

The idea is simple: survive for as long as possible. You get ONE life, and NO BOMBS. Flying and shooting is exactly the same as Retro Evolved; left stick moves and right stick fires. There are two modes in the game: Normal and Extreme. Normal is for newbs, and Extreme is for pros. 'Nuff said.

There are three new enemy types in Waves, as well as most of the returning cast from Retro Evolved.

The gates provide a new tactical advantage and scoring mechanism which you'll probably need to spend some time with before you truly appreciate. Try bouncing your bullets off of the gates and into enemies flying behind you. You'll receive double points for any enemies caught in the gate's explosion, as well as double points for any enemies you kill on the rebound.

Also, flying through multiple gates one after the other will result in incrementally larger points being awarded. Chaining together multiple gates, whilst rebounding bullets and killing enemies in the blasts is a sure-fire way to get the most out of this enemy type.

No longer will enemies spawn one at a time and wait for you to kill them. This is Waves baby! You'll get an entire line of rockets spawning at a time, moving across the screen in tandem. When they get to the edge, they'll flip around and head right back in the opposite direction. If you don't take out these rows of ships pretty efficiently then things will become very crowded, very quickly!

That's not the only difference though. The scoring system has been changed, in that you no longer increase your multiplier by shooting enemies. It is actually increased by picking up "Geoms" - little items which appear when you kill enemies. The more Geoms you pick up, the higher your multiplier. Oh, and it's not capped at all, meaning that multipliers of hundreds are obtainable.

For this reason, in Waves you'll find yourself flying toward enemies to dispatch them instead of flying away from them like you did in Retro Evolved.

This small change really alters the entire dynamic of the game; setting a high score in Waves is a much different experience than it is in Retro Evolved. Once you start using the gates to clear large groups of enemies you'll see your scores increase dramatically, and you'll be tempted to play more on Extreme mode just for the extra Geoms that are available.

Of course, GW Waves supports Xbox Live leaderboards. It'll be very interesting to see who takes the top spot. Will it be K4rn4ge and other traditional favourites? Or somebody completely new? We'll find out in just a few short days. For now, check out these brand new screenshots of the game. Enjoy!