deKay's Gaming Diary

With two earlier levels completed on Silver (actually one was Silver, the other Gold), I had enough geoms to unlock the final planet. Which was really easy – I even got Gold on it!

So that’s it – all done. Apart from going back and bettering my scores and leveling up the other drone states I’d not used much. Sweep and Turret are at max, Attack is almost there, but pretty much everything else is untouched.

After completing the game, I went back to Retro Evolved mode, and totally failed to beat my high score. Pff.

But what an excellent, excellent game. And for £17? Bargainlicious!

I’ve done all the levels now, bar the final planet on the final galaxy. I’ve got 140,000 geoms, and need 200,000 to unlock it – that’s two more Bronze-to-Silver improvements.

I’ve just realised – why is each galaxy a galaxy? They’re clearly solar systems. Hmm.

All these Geoms I’ve been collecting – hundreds of thousands of them – were all used up by the last few planets in the penultimate galaxy. Meaning I didn’t have enough to open the final galaxy. So I went back to some earlier levels and managed Gold where previously, I’d only managed Bronze. That let me in, and with the first three planets there all Gold’ed, I’m back in huge credit!

Sadly, it costs LOADS to unlock each planet, so it looks like I’ll need to get golds on them all in order to continue. Bah!

Right, I’m on the penultimate galaxy, and I’ve done three of the planets there. Not many left now! They’re all getting a bit hard though, and I haven’t managed a Silver rank in ages.

I don’t really know what to write. I really love the game, but it’s just “shoot stuff”, so there’s no real way of making an interesting diary post out of that…

I’m over halfway through unlocking the galaxies, though.

This just gets better! Every planet has a different “quirk”, like you’ve only got one life, or you have huge splitting baddies, or there’s no break from the action at all, or the “grid” is a maze with walls.

I’ve been powering up my Turret, which seems great for taking down huge swarms, especially on the more open levels. I had plenty of opportunity to power it up too, considering the number of times I had to attempt a level that needed 30 million points – just for Bronze!

That’s right – Wii and DS. The Wii game arrived today, and, to my surprise, it lets you send a copy of a port of Retro Evolved to your DS. Hurrah!

First up was the Wii “Galaxies” mode. It is ACE. I was expecting a slight drop in clarity of visuals (over the 360 Retro Evolved) but there isn’t really. It’s just not HD, that’s all. The level-based nature is a big difference to the game, but it works really well. I’ve worked through the first set of planets, and then two from the second set.

After that I had a go at the included Retro Evolved game, managing a feeble 300,000-ish points, ranking me 212th in the world. Ste Parker, of posting-in-ugvm “fame” is at 7th or 8th! Pff.

Finally, I played the DS version for a while, getting 360,000 points, even though it seemed much harder. How odd.

One go on this, just to see how crap I have become in the time I haven’t played it. And? A rubbish score of about 130,000 points. Five months ago, that would have been great, but anything short of half a million these days is just weak.

Gah! I thought a quick blast on this might give me the most fantasticnessable score evaar. Sadly, the best I could manage in a few goes was a (frankly, awful) 81,000. RUBBISH.

440,000! Yeah, I know it’s still low in the grand scheme of things, but I’m now beating some two-thirds of the people on my friend’s list. Which is all that really matters.

391,000!!!!!! ACES.

And then the rest of my attempts were crap. I lost a life at 1,200 points on one of them. RUBBISH.

Ubarpowaz! On my second attempt today (after a long break from the game) I managed about 340,000 points! OK, so compared to others it is still pretty crap (although I went up about 10 places in my friend list leaderboard), but it’s a big improvement on the 240,000-odd previous best. And it got me another two achievements – 250,000 Points, and Survived 250,000 Points – the latter as I’d not died until after 300,000. And then lost all five lives in quick succession. Bah.

Just one game unpon returning from the pub, and I beat my high score! I’m on 227,000 points now!

Yes, I am aware that that is still a rubbish score.

Once again, things started well (188,000 points), but successive games got progressively worse (ending at about 20,000). I’m rubbish at this, when I know I can do so much better.

And it makes my eyes bleed real actual blood.

210,000 points on my first attempt today. That beats my previous 190,000-ish one, but still doesn’t get me another achievement, nor much of a higher ranking.

Successive scores dropped in turn, ending at around 40,000. How disappointing.

Also rubbish was my set of scores on this today. First couple of goes were up around the 175,000 mark (not good, but not far off my current best of 192,000). Sadly, each successive game had a lower and lower score. After about 8 tries, I was getting under 50,000. So gave up. My eyes have gone screwy anyway.

Sigh. Just 188,000 this time. And I was doing so well – not losing a life (or even using a bomb) until I’d reached about 150,000 points.

My other goes were all sub-120,000. RUBBISH.

Bah. A feeble 150,000-ish points today. My usual undoing are those red blobs with the “sonic waves” (or whatever) in front of them that chase you very quickly.

It didn’t help that DBSnappa sent me a voice message, interrupting me and casing me to die. OK, so I’d just done exactly the same thing to him, but that didn’t mean he had to retaliate.

Hurrah! 196,000 points! or thereabouts, anyway. Not enough to unlock any more achievements though (of which I had two, not three). It just gets too hard when theres a billion things on screen all at the same time.

I did manage to get the “Pacifist” achievement, though, which requires you to not shoot anything for a whole minute.

Also had a go at “Retro” mode, which is supposedly the hidden game from Project Gotham Racing 2, although I never found it in that game for some reason. It’s OK, but after playing Evolved, it’s a bit, well, plain.

My first Xbox Live Arcade purchase was this game, and it’s hard. Very hard. Top score so far from me is about 130,000 – not even good enough to earn me more than three of the 12 -or-so achievements available. Bah.