"The games I personally find to be the most influential are 'Xevious' and 'Geometry Wars.' 'Xevious' is the game I was most taken with during my childhood, and it is the title that led me to want to work at Namco. On the other hand, 'Geometry Wars' made me very interested in the Xbox hardware, which I didn't really care about before it was released. Both of these games had a big impact on 'Pac-Man C.E.' and 'Galaga Legions.' In these days where people only can make million-dollar budget games that are reality-centered, I was encouraged a lot by the fact that many people from all over the world respect these kinds of symbolic-style games. Both titles have none of the futile visual effects, and are titles that have beautiful balance between its symbolic style and game balance."

-- "Galaga Legions" and "Pac-Man C.E." team director Tadashi Iguchi via e-mail telling me about his influences when revisiting Namco Bandai's classic games

The new "Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2" for the Xbox 360, the latest obsession for high-score-obsessed gamers who own Microsoft's system, repairs two problems its creators had with its predecessor. And it is setting the stage for a half a dozen more games.

During a 20-minute interview with Multiplayer last week, a pair of the game's developers at Bizarre Creations revealed some of the secrets of "Retro Evolved 2"'s creation, answered complaints about the game's Pacifism mode and revealed at least some of what was cut from the game -- and why.

The new game had been development for a while, they told me. That wasn't the plan.

Read more...

A friend just shot me a link to an article at GameStooge regarding the allegedly "broken" gameplay in "Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2."

The article's author, Jonah Falcon, says that Pacifism -- the very mode I just praised a day ago as the best part of the new Xbox Live Arcade game -- is broken. He writes:

The problem is pretty simple: the odds are too stacked against you. For one, the gates themselves are somewhat deadly - the orange ends will kill you. Right there, the game fails. In a survival arcade game, your benefactors cannot be partly deadly. When you’re rushing towards a group of gates - which rotate, by the way - it’s actually a bad tactic because sure as shootin’, you’re going to die. Not good when there’s a wall of enemies bearing down on you. In a fast-paced arcade game, being forced to think rather than react obliterates the entire experience. I think on my feet, but when you continually get punished for being clever because one idle spinning gate just happens to zonk you, you become frustrated and worry more about your allies rather than your enemies, which by any definition is counterproductive.

I am frustrated by the same things the GameStooge writer is, but I don't know if that makes the mode broken. What do the rest of you "GWRE2" players think? (Just a wild guess but I don't think the person who posted this insane clip on YouTube would agree.)

Read the full complaint at GameStooge: FEATURE: Broken Gameplay in Geometry Wars 2

If I was able to be one of 36 members of the gaming media to nominate the best games of E3, surely someone will allow me, today, to nominate my pick for best Xbox Achievement of 2008?

Who cares if the year is barely halfway finished? How can there be a better Xbox 360 Achievement than "Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2"'s Wax Off?

Let's back up for a second. In my last diary entryI wrote about my Tuesday morning session with "GWRE2." I liked the twin-stick shooter but didn't feel yet that it was the best game in the series.

I hadn't unlocked all of the game's six modes yet. On Tuesday night I did, and the game became my favorite "Geometry Wars," after all. Credit the new game's Pacifism mode, which ensnared me with the best let-me-try-one-more allure of a good bag of potato chips. Pacifism Mode also contains what I think is the best and most smartly designed Achievement of the year: Wax Off.
Let me make my case.. Read more...

What I thought would be a dry 24 hours of not playing games was enriched in the final minutes, early this morning, with the pleasant discovery that the new twin-stick shooter "Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2" was available for download over Xbox Live Arcade.

This was great news for me not just because the first "Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved" was my favorite game of the Xbox 360's launch, but because the unheralded "Geometry Wars: Galaxies" on the Wii (classic controller is a must!) was one of my top 10 games of last year.

The new game offers six modes of play, each unlocked after investing putting time in the previous one. I only played three this morning: 1) the three-minute-timed Deadline, 2) a mode called King in which you can only shoot from safety zones that appear and disappear anywhere on the game board -- echoes of dark-world safe zones in "Metroid Prime 2: Echoes" -- and 3) Evolved, which plays similarly to the main mode of "GWRE."

I often start playing sequels in a skeptical and grumpy mood. "GWRE2" suffered from that. Read more...