WII GAME RECOMMENDATIONS |

[#] Geometry Wars: Galaxies (Vivendi, Wii, 2007)

Beyond reproach.

If I gave the DS version a soft recommendation, the Wii version of Geometry Wars: Galaxies is a must-own--with the right controller. A twin-stick shooter from the deepest recesses of space, Geometry Wars revels in mobbing you with hundreds of polygonal enemies as much as it does giving you a steady stream of firepower to clear a path with. If you love Robotron or Smash TV, this will become your new favorite game. Again, provided you own a Classic Controller. If you try to play this game with the Wiimote-and-Nunchuk combo, you'll be spending the entire game with your achy arm pointed at the screen, lacking the fine, twitchy precision necessary to stay alive. If you play it with a Classic Controller, you're cooking with heat.

Galaxies is split into its namesake campaign mode and a perfect port of the traditional Retro Evolved mode, as seen in the Xbox Live Arcade version. The campaign isn't bad. It tries to wrinkle up the formula by sending you to "planets" with different playfield shapes, enemy behaviors, and geoms to collect to massively inflate your score with multipliers. You also get a helper droid which can be set with one of many behaviors to attack, defend, or collect geoms, though I always find that the attack mode is both the most useful and the one that gets upgraded the fastest since it's the default. It's the meat of this disc for sure and would feel empty if it were missing, but Galaxies isn't where the magic happens.

No, the magic happens in Retro Evolved. No amount of tampering with a good thing changes the amount of strategy, fast reflexes, and technique that goes into stirring the gigantic stew of diamonds, squares, and little X's that bumrush you. The Classic Controller is built for this game, and the graphics, simple as they are, perfectly communicate everything you need to know to survive in razor-sharp focus. It's the push and pull between sticking around one more second to keep spewing into a crowd for points or clearing everything out with a smartbomb to survive another round, or the rush to stop a gravity well exploding, that makes a man feel alive. Breaking the million point barrier is a tall ask. Then you grind to break two. Then three. Oh, it's good.

Recommended for... literally anyone and everyone who owns a Classic Controller.