Just a sideshow to the Wii version, but still pretty fun.
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved was a smash hit on the XBOX 360's Live Arcade, and for good reason. It is an intense, crazy, and fun arcade-style shooting game where you have a ship on a grid and move with one control stick while shooting with the other to destroy the various enemies that come on the grid. Now, Geometry Wars has come to Wii and DS, and while both versions are good, the Wii version is much better than the DS version. Both games include Retro Evolved and a new campaign called 'Galaxies'.
In Galaxies mode, there are a ton of levels all with different point requirements, life and bomb amounts, grid shape, and enemies. You also get a little ship that follows you, called a drone, to help you. Before you begin a level, you tell the drone what action to take. You can make it fight with you (Attack), go in circles around you and destroy enemies on contact (Sweep), have it stay in one place and fire in a circle (Turret), and more. The drone levels up in each ability and gets better and better until it reaches level 10. There are also objects called geoms in the Galaxies mode, which is the currency of the game. With geoms, you can buy new drone abilities, galaxies, and planets. They also increase your score multiplier within a level. There are also online leaderboards for every planet in the game and for Retro Evolved as well, which is a good addition to an already complete game. To top it all off, there is one galaxy that can only be unlocked by connecting a Wii game with a DS game
In this version, you move with the control pad (which, even on a DS Lite, is a little bit painful after awhile) and shoot using the touch screen. The controls in this version work very well and the aiming is just as precise as in the Wii version. The graphics in this verison are simplistic, but they still look pretty nice. The frame rate is pretty bad at some points, unlike the Wii version which has a perfect frame rate. Some enemies move much, much slower than they're supposed to and make the game a whole lot easier than on the Wii. This also makes the game feel much less intense, and intensity is key in Geometry Wars, so the game suffers from that as well.
There is also a multiplayer mode in this game. In the multiplayer, there are actually two ships on the grid, which sounds like it would get confusing, but it somehow isn't that confusing. You can do versus or co-op on Retro Evolved or do select Galaxies levels with a partner. The multiplayer was a nice addition to the game and is very good and fun. You can even do it with one game card, which is very nice
Despite its faults, the DS version of Galaxies is a good game. It just suffers from lack of intensity and lower difficulty, which makes it feel less like Geometry Wars. Otherwise, this game is worth checking out, but if you own a Wii and DS, then the Wii version is the way to go.
Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 6
Sound: 7
Value: 8
