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As someone who owns a 360, a Wii, and Retro Evolved, I'll bite: what makes it that worth my $30?
Well, imagine that Retro Evolved is a demo of a larger game. It is a demo that literally gives you roughly 1/60th of the final product.
There are something over 60 levels in Galaxies, and every level is different, with its own size, shape, and 'landscape' and sometimes 'weather effects' (like 'meteor' showers or permanent black holes). So while RE always plays in a large rectangle, in Galaxies, you have all types of different sizes and shapes of arenas, many of which have different kinds of level-specific attributes. So one level may be an octogon shape, but it has mine-layind drones dropping mines that chain together for great explosions. Another might be a funny circle shape with barriers in various places, but a huge vortex in the middle that twists and manipulates gravity in changing ways. You might have another level that has obstacles, say blocks, standing in your way - except the blocks are constantly moving, changing the arena and your various spots of safety. On top of that, there are new and different kinds of enemies. As far as enemies affecting the arena, sometimes you'll get a 'meteor shower' of red blocks that swarm the whole area from outside the arena, or these floaty eyeball enemies that cross the arena in flocks that are worth more points, that you have to destroy before they escape. But you also have a few other kinds of cool enemies; like the titan-like large enemies that are big versions of smaller enemies. Shooting them causes them to explode into 2 smaller versions of themselves; shooting those results in them exploding into maybe 10 regular-sized versions of the enemies into the arena. With many titan-like enemies, it changes the way you might go about scoring in the level.
But what's more important than that is the fact that you have a drone backing you up, which adds another layer of strategy to it. The drones are little helpers that follow you around.
The drone can be assigned 1 of 8 different Behaviors. Behaviors vary from Attack, Defend, to Turrent or Collect, and many others. So the Attack drone will help you shoot down enemies in the direction of you're firing, for extra fire power. The Defend will shoot in the opposite direction of your fire. The Turrent will find a nice place to chill out as it spread fire in 360 degrees kind of like a sprinker system of death. Or Collect Drone will help collect items called Geoms from about the level.
Which brings me to my next point - Geoms. Geoms are items that enemies drop as you kill them. You have to collect these to increase your score multiplier. So not only are you shooting enemies and trying to survive and avoid level obstacles, but you also need to collect Geoms for higher scores. They also will add up and give you another life/bomb. Having the Collect drone collect Geoms for you helps you stay alive since you don't have to go amidst the battle to collect dropped Geoms where enemies might be swarming.
But the Drone mechanic doesn't stop there. The more you use a Drone Behavior, the more the Drone behavior levels up. So while the Turret drone may be a weak little pea shooter that spits out some bullets in all directions at first, by the time you've fully levelled it up, it'll be spinning and unloading waves of bullet death to your enemies. The Collect drone may only go out a few inches from your ship to grab Geoms at first, but a fully levelled Collect Drone will buzz all around the arena collecting Geoms for you at a fast pace. the full attack drone give you the ability to cut through swarms of enemies like a hot knife through butter.
Different drone abiliities are useful in different levels. I say that because each of the ~60 some odd planets awards Medals for different score performances. Drone usage comes in as additional strategy to achieving different scores. So while the Turret may be good for large open levels with semi-high Gold Medal Scores, you might not use it in tightly-enclosed Pacman-maze-like levels; you may prefer a Defend or Attack drone there. Or perhaps the Gold Medal is set at 30,000,000 points? Might want to use the Collect drone to get your multiplier up and keep grabbing geoms to get you precious bombs and lives in order to endure the onslaught until you hit 30,000,000 points.
On top of that, Galaxies also has a 2 player mode. Think Retro Evolved is fun? Imagine playing with a friend. Two badass space ships blasting swarms of geometric enemies, each with their own badass powered up drone of different abilities. Or, you can compete with each other (I'm pretty sure anyway).
After that, you can post your top Overall Galaxies Score to the online leaderboards and see how you stack up. I managed to Gold every planet and ended up at around rank ~100 or so.
Lastly, you have Retro Evolved with online leaderboards included with the game, if you ever want to go back to that.
Oh, one more thing - the Wii version lets you send a downloadable version of Retro Evolved to your DS. So you can play RE on your DS on the go (temporarily) or you can use it to see if you might want to buy Galaxies for your DS as an additional portable iteration of this fantastic gameplay.
That is why Galaxies frickin' rules.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Some people had a civil, back and forth and informed discussion about the differences between two games, and about the ethical ramifications of making Grid Wars 2.
It's been splendid.
Kudos to all involved.
If only more threads could be like this.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx