,---. | . . . | _.,---.,---.,-.-.,---.|--- ,---., . | | |,---.,---.,---. | ||---'| || | ||---'| | | | | | |,---|| `---. `---'`---'`---'` ' '`---'`---'` `---| `-'-'`---^` `---' `---' /) , _ _ // _ __/ _ _ (_/_(_(_(/_(_(_ /(___(__(/_/_)_ .-/ / (_/ o-------------------------------------------o | | | Written by ahhsumX | | website: www.awesomeghost.com | | contact: [email protected] | | | o-------------------------------------------o --.-- | | | ntentions............................................................. --'-- Here's what I intend to do with this guide (in short). + Provide basic game info + Provide information on drones + Provide information on enemies + Provide information on all Galaxies and Planets + Provide some strategies on levels, but hopefully get feedback from you (the reader) on really good strategies for levels. Let us begin then... *** This FAQ was written with the DS version of Geometries Wars: Galaxies, I find that the Wii version is MUCH more difficult! The higher quality graphics and more powerful processor allow for a lot more chaotic on screen action! So, let it be known. *** ........................................................................... ********************************************************* ** ** *** Searching: *** *** I have implemented the classic search and find feature *** *** into this guide. Next to each item in the table of *** *** contents you'll find a "code" in square brackets. If *** *** you copy this code, hit ctrl+f and then paste this *** *** code you can use your browser or text file viewer to *** *** locate that section of the guide. It's easy to use and *** *** there to make your use of this guide easier. Enjoy *** ** ** ********************************************************* .---. .--. | : | .-. | | able ( )f : ontents............................................... ' `-' `--' I. Basic Info_______________________________________________________[#BASIC] a. Controls..............................................[#CONTR] b. Game Modes............................................[#MODES] c. Gameplay..............................................[#GAMEP] d. Tips and Tricks.......................................[#TIPSS] II. Drones__________________________________________________________[#DRONE] a. Attack................................................[#DRATT] b. Defend................................................[#DRDEF] c. Collect...............................................[#DRCOL] d. Snipe.................................................[#DRSNI] e. Sweep.................................................[#DRSWE] f. Ram...................................................[#DRRAM] g. Turret................................................[#DRTUR] h. Bait..................................................[#DRBAI] III. Enemies________________________________________________________[#ENEMI] a. Classic Enemy Types...................................[#CLASS] i. Wanderer...................................[#CLWAN] ii. Grunt.....................................[#CLGRU] iii. Weaver...................................[#CLWEA] iv. Spinner...................................[#CLSPI] v. Tiny Spinner...............................[#CLTIN] vi. Gravity Well..............................[#CLGWE] vii. Proton...................................[#CLPRO] viii. Snake...................................[#CLSNA] ix. Repulsor..................................[#CLREP] x. Mayfly.....................................[#CLMFL] b. New Enemy Types.......................................[#NEWEN] i. Mutator....................................[#NEMUT] ii. Mutated...................................[#NEMTD] iii. UFO......................................[#NEUFO] iv. Generator.................................[#NEGEN] v. Black Hole.................................[#NEBLA] vi. Asteroids.................................[#NEAST] vii. Cell Mass................................[#NECEL] viii. Dart....................................[#NEDAR] ix. Neutron...................................[#NENEU] x. NUFO.......................................[#NENUF] xi. Wormhole..................................[#NEWOR] xii. Meteor...................................[#NEMET] xiii. Mine Layer..............................[#NEMIN] xiv. Flipper..................................[#NEFLI] IV. Galaxies and Planets____________________________________________[#GALAX] a. Alpha.................................................[#GALPH] b. Beta..................................................[#GBETA] c. Gamma.................................................[#GGAMM] d. Delta.................................................[#GDELT] e. Epsilon...............................................[#GEPSI] f. Zeta..................................................[#GZETA] g. Eta...................................................[#GETAA] h. Theta.................................................[#GTHET] i. Kappa.................................................[#GKAPP] j. Lambda................................................[#GLAMB] V. Versions_________________________________________________________[#VERSI] VI. About Me and this Guide_________________________________________[#ABOUT] VII. Credits________________________________________________________[#CREDI] ............................................................................ o---------------------------------------------------------------o |/ \| | Basic Info | 0_______________________________________________________________0 \ [#BASIC] / o-----------------------------------------------------------o __________ __/ Controls \______________________________________________________[#CONTR] If you've played the Xbox Live Arcade game Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved you know about the simple to use dual-joystick controls, but obviously the DS (nor the Wii, if you're playing that version) have dual joysticks, so there have been some changes in the controls. I think these make the game a little more difficult to get used to than the 360 version, but despite the learning curve they work fairly well. *correction* - if you have the Classic Controller for the Wii you can actually use it and then you have that Dual Joystick style control. Thanks to Kilroy84 for pointing this out. o===============================================o | In Menus | o--------------o--------------------------------o | Control Pad | Change Selection | o--------------o--------------------------------o | A | Select | o--------------o--------------------------------o | B | Back | o===============================================o o===============================================o | In Game | o--------------o--------------------------------o | Control Pad | Move Ship | o--------------o--------------------------------o | A, B, X, Y | Firing Direction | o--------------o--------------------------------o | Stylus | Firing Direction | o--------------o--------------------------------o | L or R | Bomb | o===============================================o This is the default set up, the controls can be swapped around in options to change the stylus to movement and to swap the control pad and face buttons for lefty's. ____________ __/ Game Modes \____________________________________________________[#MODES] The Games main mode is "Galaxies" (as the name implies), but it is not the only mode. There are a few Multi-Player modes along with the original version of the game, Retro Evolved. ~~~~ Galaxies ~~~~ In Galaxies mode you will be traveling to different Galaxies battling in each ones various planets to gain medals and collect Geoms. Although the Medals don't really have an effect on the game, each planet has a Bronze, Silver and Gold medal available for scoring so many points. Each enemy also drops Geoms in this mode that can be used for many things. I explain Geoms in more depth down below, but you'll be using these to unlock new Drones, new Planets and new Galaxies. This is essentially the "adventure" mode of Geometry Wars: Galaxies (if you didn't notice by the name). ~~~~ Multi-Player ~~~~ Unfortunately I don't know anyone else who owns this game I can play it with. Please feel free to send me info to put here about multiplayer modes. ~~~~ Retro Evolved ~~~~ This is what I would call the "classic" mode. It is a reproduction of the game that was released on the Xbox Live Arcade. It features one large square area and a ton of enemies for you to see how long you can last up against. __________ __/ Gameplay \______________________________________________________[#GAMEP] ~~~~ Basic Info ~~~~ For those new to the Geometry Wars games, here's what it's all about. You have full control of a ship with a 360 degree shooting angle. You can shoot in any direction despite the direction you are moving in. Most enemies die in 1 hit as do you. Most levels give you 3 lives before you lose, but some only give you one. The game thrives off of the arcade style logic of "how many points can you get this time?" There's no real end to any level, it's all about endurance. Galaxies twists up the formula by pitting you in many different sized and shaped rooms while forcing you to fight off hundreds and thousands of different enemies. Defeated enemies drop Geoms which you can collect and are good for all sorts of different reasons. But I explain these reasons below in the Geoms section, so read there for more info. There's a bit more going on, but I'll talk about everything individually in the following sections so just keep reading. ~~~~ Geoms ~~~~ Galaxies introduces a form of "currency" to Geometry Wars called Geoms. As you defeat enemies they will drop these Geoms that usually either look like diamonds or bold plus signs. They dissapear after a short time of being on screen and collecting them allows you to buy new drones, new planets and new galaxies. Collecting Geoms also gives you gun upgrades and extra lives/bombs while in levels. Any level that starts you with 1 life, you cannot gain bombs or extra lives in (as far as I've noticed). However, any level that starts you wtih 3 live and 3 bombs at set increments of Geoms you can gain +1 of each. Yet another perk to Geoms is your score mutliplier. Each enemy has a base amount of points it will give you for defeating it. However, with each Geom you collect your mutiplier increases up to a max of 150x. It will stay at this point as long as you are alive, but once you die you'll be back to 1x. After you've bought all the galaxies, planents and drones collecting geoms really serves no purpose except for the extra lives/bombs in those levels. ~~~~ Lives ~~~~ Pretty straightforward, each level has a set number of lives you start with. If you lose them all, the level ends, as long as you have one, you keep going. You don't have health so running into any enemy will cause you to die and lose a life. You can get more lives as mentioned above in the Geoms section. ~~~~ Bombs ~~~~ Most levels give you some bombs to start with. Using a bomb clears the screen of all enemies, but gives you no points for those enemies. From what I've noticed, bombs do not clear Asteroids from the screen, but will clear all other enemy types. Although it sounds like a waste of precious points to use bombs to kill off the enemies and get no points, keep in mind that if you have a 150x multiplier and you die, you're going to lose a lot more points building back up that mutliplier than if you had just bombed the screen to save yourself. Bombs should be used when you get caught in a corner and can't get out. ~~~~ Gun ~~~~~ At the beginning of a stage your gun fires out 2 shots. There are no bullet amounts that you can run out or anything, it's a constant steady fire in whatever direction you choose. After collecting X number of Geoms (I don't know the exact number) you will upgrade to a higher level gun. There are 2 higher level guns that will randomly swap between each other throughout the rest of the stage. One has 3 rapid fire shots, the other has 5 slower shooting shots. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but it's not really worth discussing since you don't have control over which one you'll have when. But you will never downgrade back to the 2 shot gun after upgrading to one of the higher level ones, thats for sure. _________________ __/ Tips and Tricks \_______________________________________________[#TIPSS] I reference a few things over and over again throughout this FAQ so I figured why not just move them all up to here in case you are just looking for some general info and not anything level specific. So, here is what I call "Tips and Tricks" and please feel free to send me any of your tips or general strategies so that I can add them here. After all, the more the merrier. ~~~~ The Circle Method ~~~~ To Geometry Wars veterans this is like second nature, but to new comers this can be a very helpful strategy to get used to and you'll see that I reference it in probably half of the planets. The general thought behind this strategy is that none of the enemies are very smart and they are all after you. So, if you just continue to fly in big clockwise or counter-clockwise circles around the edges of the level (but not to close to the edges) then everything will gather up behind you in one giant cluster. As you circle be sure to be shooting straight ahead so that you don't run into anything, then when you have a little breathing room, turn around quickly and fire off some shots in the mass to eliminate some of those enemies. Master this and you have mastered Retro Evolved mode along with having a much easier time in many of the planets. ~~~~ Have Faith ~~~~ Another thing that is hard for new comers to Geometry Wars (and was definitely hard for me) is to have faith in your little ships guns. If you fly straight into a mass of pretty much any enemy, no matter how many, as long as you are shooting straight ahead where you're flying you aren't going to get hurt and you're going to destroy everything. I think it's easy to want to stray away from the big clusters of enemies because they can be fairly intimidating, but try it out a few times and just "have faith". ~~~~ Watch the Edge ~~~~ Most enemies will spawn around the edges so try not to ever sit to close to them. Enemies *will* spawn on top of you and you will die from it. Often with Asteroids you'll get a second chance because as long as your shooting they seem to take their first explode if they spawn on top of you, but you won't be so lucky with regular enemies. So beware not to sit to close to the walls. ~~~~ Stay out of Corners ~~~~ Okay, initially I chose to take a stand that corners were bad, but maybe they aren't so much after all. There are a few levels where I definitely use them to my advantage even though for the most part I don't like them. Depending on the types of enemies that are around I find that often if I put myself in a corner I get stuck and can't get out. So, while I personally try to stay out of corners, Kilroy84 has emailed me and says that putting himself in a corner allows him to identify who is where and then prioritize what he wants to do. I guess the most I can say here is judge the level layout and the types of enemies that are around as to whether you should use the corners or stay away from them. ~~~~ Saving Grace ~~~~ Bombs are your saving grace. Don't forget you have them! It's easy to forget you have them and it's also easy to want to stray away from using them because of the fact that the enemies they take out aren't worth any points. But think of it this way, if you die with a 150x multiplier you are back to a 1x multiplier. Then it takes at least the next 149 enemies to get back to the 150x multiplier that you were at. So, if you are in a life-death situation drop a bomb! It'll clear the whole screen and give you a second to regain your ground. Another use I have for bombs is sometimes when I get a bunch of them built up I like to destroy a bunch of enemies and then drop one so that I have a chance to collect all the geoms, especially if there are Mutators around who drop the nice big geoms. o---------------------------------------------------------------o |/ \| | Drones | 0_______________________________________________________________0 \ [#DRONE] / o-----------------------------------------------------------o New to Galaxies is the idea of Drones. Whether you want it or not, they are here to assist you in each level. They are literally a sort of helper bot that flies along with you through each level and each one has a different specialty. Some are better for different levels, but each has it's advantage. Hopefully in the section about each planet I can give you some helpful info about which ones to use where, but here let's just look at what each one does. As you play levels the drones will gain experience and every 100 exp they will level up. (not positive, but) I assume that leveling up increases each ones specialty and makes it smarter or better in a helpful sort of way. Yeah, that's kind of vague, but it's probably true. I've decided that I will give each one a "Usefulness" rating between 1 to 5. In general each one does have a purpose, but for scoring Gold medals there are some that really stand above the rest. This is soley my opinion so ignore it if you want, but if you're stuck on which one to use maybe my votes will point you in the right direction. ** For more in depth info on drones there is a FAQ dedicated soley to them! While I am trying to cover the game more broadly, you should check it out if that is what you want info on. ** ________ ___/ Attack \_______________________________________________________[#DRATT] Cost: 0 Geoms Behavior: Attacks in the same direction you are shooting. Usefulness Rating: 5 ________ ___/ Defend \_______________________________________________________[#DRDEF] Cost: 3,500 Geoms Behavior: Travels behind you shooting backwards. Usefulness Rating: 5 _________ ___/ Collect \______________________________________________________[#DRCOL] Cost: 14,500 Geoms Behavior: Flys around collecting geoms around you. Usefulness Rating: 2 _______ ___/ Snipe \________________________________________________________[#DRSNI] Cost: 28,000 Geoms Behavior: This Drone literally picks out targets and then snipes them. It shot will also pierce through enemies. Usefulness Rating: 2 _______ ___/ Sweep \________________________________________________________[#DRSWE] Cost: 57,000 Geoms Behavior: Flys in circles around your ship and if enemies run into it they die. Usefulness Rating: 4 _____ ___/ Ram \__________________________________________________________[#DRRAM] Cost: 90,000 Geoms Behavior: Finds enemies around you and rams into them to kill them. Usefulness Rating: 1 ________ ___/ Turret \_______________________________________________________[#DRTUR] Cost: 150,000 Geoms Behavior: Positions itself and shoots in circles around it for a time. Usefulness Rating: 4 ______ __/ Bait \__________________________________________________________[#DRBAI] Cost: 300,000 Geoms Behavior: Literally acts as a bait to the enemies. Usefulness Rating: 1 As I said, there's a great FAQ with detailed info on all these so I'm being purposefully vague here, check it out if you need more depth on Drones. o---------------------------------------------------------------o |/ \| | Enemies | 0_______________________________________________________________0 \ [#ENEMI] / o-----------------------------------------------------------o There are two "categories" of enemies in this game. "Classic enemies" refers to enemies from the original Geometry Wars game, and "New Enemies" are enemies new to Galaxies. Doesn't make any difference if you haven't played the XBLA game, but if you have and wanna know about the new enemies they are broken up in this way. They all have a fairly basic look and behavior, but I'll try and give a little description of both so you can get an idea of how they act. I'll also put the color each enemy is (which will hopefully help avoid confusion between 2 similarly shaped enemies) and a "strategy" for killing them. There isn't really a strategy to most enemies, but I don't know what else to call this. : note : Thanks to Kevin for sending me the Base points and Geoms for the enemies! _____________________ __/ Classic Enemy Types \___________________________________________[#CLASS] ~~~~ Wanderer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLWAN] Look: Kinda like a propeller Color: Purple Base Points: 25 Geoms Dropped: 10 Behavior: As the name implies, they kinda just wander around with no real set path. They are pretty slow moving and easy to kill. Essentially the most basic of enemies. Strategy: Just shoot 'em. They only take one hit so you can fly straight at them while shooting and you'll be fine. ~~~~ Grunt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLGRU] Look: Diamond Color: Blue Base Points: 50 Geoms Dropped: 20 Behavior: Heads straight for your ship, nothing special. Strategy: Just shoot 'em. Yeah, I said it for wanderer's to. ~~~~ Weaver ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLWEA] Look: Diamond in a Square Color: Green Base Points: 100 Geoms Dropped: 50 Behavior: Annoying! These guys will avoid your shots and then work their way at you. Strategy: Kilroy84 has pointed out an important point on Weavers so I am revising the strategy here. The Weavers like to dodge pretty much every shot, whether it is direction towards them or not. So, a "Turret Drone" style sweep they will more than likely just dodge infinitely. However, a direct on shot is much more difficult for them to dodge and will kill them no problem (unless there are other misguided shots around them). ~~~~ Spinner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLSPI] Look: X in a Square Color: Pink Base Points: 100 Geoms Dropped: 0 Behavior: These guys come straight for you, but release 3 Tiny Spinners after being destroyed. Strategy: It only takes 1 shot to beat these guys, and they behave just as the grunts, however, you want to watch out when you kill them because of the Tiny Spinners they release. It's good to shoot and then slightly back off (if you have the space behind you) to avoid these little guys, or just make sure you plow straight through and don't give the little ones a chance to catch you off guard. ~~~~ Tiny Spinner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLTIN] Look: Tiny version of the Spinners...literally Color: Pink Base Points: 50 Geoms Dropped: 10 Behavior: Another really annoying one, they do a circular pattern while moving towards you. Can be very sneaky when there are a lot of enemies on screen and you aren't watching them. Elminate quickly! Strategy: These guys only come from defeating Spinners, and you'll more than likely destroy the first one when you defeat the Spinner itself. But the other two you really have to watch out that they don't catch you off guard. It's usually best to back off right after defeating a Spinner and spray some shots in that direction to get these guys; or plow straight through the Spinner then spray some shots behind you to hopefully get these guys. ~~~~ Gravity Well ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLGWE] Look: Big Circle Color: Red Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: Harmless until shot, but after one shot starts sucking in any enemies (or you) that get to close. As it sucks in enemies it swells up until it can't hold anymore at which point it releases several protons out. Strategy: There are two ways to go about these: First is the way I like, when you see one go straight towards it and take it out. Then you don't have to worry about it exploding. Or, you could shoot it once and let it fill up a bit and then destroy it. Each shot makes it shrink in size slightly until it's gone, and as it fills up with stuff it will be worth more points than if you destroy it when it's empty, but you also run the risk of it rupturing. ~~~~ Proton ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLPRO] Look: Small Circle Color: Blue Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: Fast and head straight for you. Strategy: These guys won't come out unless you let a Gravity Well explode, but when they do watch out because they come quick and several will come out at a time. They die in one hit, but can easily catch you off guard due to their speed. ~~~~ Snake ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLSNA] Look: Like a snake! Color: Yellow body, Blue head Base Points: 150 Geoms Dropped: 50 Behavior: These guys snake around in funky patterns, real long bodies. Strategy: Getting in between a handful of these can be a real headache and can call for a good bombing due to the fact that you can only defeat them by shooting them in the head. Shooting their bodies will do nothing, but running in to any part of them will kill you. ~~~~ Repulsor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLREP] Look: Like your ship with a shield in front Color: Red Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: These guys will head at you and follow you around. However, their ability to turn is much worse than yours so sometimes they have to stop, turn, and then start moving again. Strategy: You can't hit these guys straight on due to their shield, but if do a quick circle around them when they head you they will have to stop to get back on track and that is the perfect time to shoot them. Like the Snakes, several of these on screen at once usually calls for a good bombing in my case, but they are manageable with some practice. ~~~~ Mayfly ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#CLMFL] Look: Small Triangles Color: Blue Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: These are like a flocking type enemy. They always come in packs and travel on a fairly quick path straight at you. Strategy: With these guys you really want to shoot straight into them and fly in the same direction. Because they always travel in packs you want to cut straight through the pack one way and then turn around and cut through it again (if you don't get them all the first time) because they travel at a decent speed and can flock around you easy if you aren't careful. _________________ __/ New Enemy Types \_______________________________________________[#NEWEN] ~~~~ Mutator ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEMUT] Look: All Ziggity Zaggety (yeah..) Color: Blue Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: Float around and occasionally spawns mutateds Strategy: I'm not sure I completely understand this enemy, but from what I've picked up they just kind of linger around and then and random intervals will spawn out some mutateds (maybe like 3-5). They can be an annoying enemy when to many are around because of the fact that they spawn other enemies, but also because they are one of the few enemies that take more than one hit to defeat. Okay, from what I've gathered the Mutators actually require another enemy spawn Mutateds. So what they like to do are latch onto another enemy and then after a short time you get a handful of Mutateds to deal with. You need to especially be careful when there are Cell Masses around Mutators because they will latch on and just keep spawning Mutateds over and over. ~~~~ Mutated ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEMTD] Look: Kinda like a Biohazard symbol Color: Blue Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: Quick moving and head for you. Similar to the Mayflowers or Protons. Strategy: These guys spawn from the Mutators so the quicker you can take those out the less of these you'll have to deal with. As far as killing them though I recommend a little bit of a backward movement while shooting at them because they come in fast and kind of swarm. ~~~~ UFO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEUFO] Look: A big Eye Color: Red Base Points: 5000 Geoms Dropped: 0 Behavior: Fly in and out at random times on certain levels Strategy: Defeat it if you see it because it's worth good points. Normally doesn't stick around long though can move quickly. ~~~~ Generator ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEGEN] Look: Double ringed circle with enemy symbol in the middle Color: Red when releasing enemies, Blue when vulnerable Base Points: 150(ish?) Geoms Dropped: 100 Behavior: These guys have 2 states to them, when they are red they will release a constant flow of enemies. The enemy type is different based on the level you are on, or just the Generator type in general, but are *usually* one of the basic Classic enemies. After they have released a number of enemies, they turn blue for awhile and do nothing. After a short time they switch back to red and repeat. Strategy: You can only defeat these when they are blue and I recommend you get rid of them as quickly as possible. While releasing enemies I like to sit kind of close to them and shoot at them to take out the enemies quickly then when it stops a few shots will do it in. ~~~~ Black Hole ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEBLA] Look: A big swirling vortex, usually in the center of a planet. Color: Blue Base Points: 0 Geoms Dropped: 0 Behavior: Switches between a clockwise and counter-clockwise pull. Creates a swirling effect on the planet. Trying to fly against is like trying to swim upstream and the opposite when you go with it. On planets that have these they are usually right in the middle. Strategy: These cannot be defeated, so there really isn't much strategy to be said here. I recommend fighting "upstream" because then the enemies are coming at you instead of from your backside. ~~~~ Asteroids ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEAST] Look: Bigger versions of normal enemies Color: Orange Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: Just float around, then explode into two smaller versions of themselves, then those each explode into a bunch of the enemies that the resemble. Here are some numbers (thanks to Kevin): - Grunt Asteroids spawn somewhere between 14-22 Grunts - Wanderer Asteroids spawn between 14-26 Wanderers Strategy: These guys can be overwhelming if to many get on screen because after you fight a few you'll soon realize that for every one asteroid you see, you've got something like 20 enemies on your hands. But they won't do anyting until you shoot them so you'll want to kind of corner them (if you can) and then just keep the shots on them steady so that as they break apart you can defeat all of the enemies that come out of them real easily. ~~~~ Cell Mass ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NECEL] Look: Kind of like frog eggs all bunched together Color: Beige Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: None Strategy: These guys really don't do anything, they are just there to be an obstacle in your way and can be a pain when there are a lot of them all bunched together. Certain levels will just have bunches of them here and there and you'll want to make sure you get rid of them every now and then so that they don't reproduce and become to overwhelming. These often appear on levels that have Mutators because they are an easy target for the Mutators to latch on and create Mutateds from. ~~~~ Dart ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEDAR] Look: Like a paper airplane Color: Red Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: Slightly hard to describe, but they kind of zig-zag around. Strategy: These guys are really easy to run into because of their pattern. Where most enemies you can just plow straight through knowing that the ones around you won't hit you and you'll kill the ones in front of you, with the pattern of these guys it's real easy for the ones around you to hit you so personally I prefer to just back off for a second and defeat these guys before moving in. ~~~~ Neutron ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NENEU] Look: A Circle with 3 smaller attached circles Color: Blue Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: Fast and head straight for you, but kind of surround you at the same time. Strategy: These guys are almost like bigger protons, except they appear at any time like other normal enemies. I like to defeat them while flying backwards a bit because of how they try to surround your ship slighlty. Flying backwards causing them to land right in front of you so you can take them out with easy. ~~~~ NUFO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NENUF] Look: Smaller eyes Color: Orange Base Points: 500 Geoms Dropped: 0 Behavior: These guys will be floating around various levels in huge packs. They can't hurt you, but are worth decent points if you kill them. They do try to avoid your shots though when you shoot at them, but since they don't move very quickly is pretty easy to get 'em. Strategy: Just fly into a pack of them without shooting then fire a handful of shots in various directions to take some out. Don't focus on them when you see them because they won't hurt you if you fly over them. They are worth grabbing though when you have the chance for easy points. ~~~~ Wormhole ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEWOR] Look: Blue hole that has that effect like when you shoot Gravity Wells. Color: Blue Base Points: 0 Geoms Dropped: 0 Behavior: Just sit there and look like they are sucking in although they have no pull. Strategy: Cannot be defeated, ues them to transport from one to the other. ~~~~ Meteor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEMET] Look: Squares/Diamonds depending on falling angle Color: Red Base Points: ? Geoms Dropped: ? Behavior: Some levels literally have Meteor showers in which tons of meteors fall across the screen in different directions. These will hurt you and you will have to destroy them to survive. They normally grid the whole screen, or a decent chunk of the screen when they "shower". Strategy: Just aim in the opposite direction they are falling and shoot. You will destroy the ones that are a direct threat to you by doing this. If there are a lot of enemies around while meteors are falling just try to be shooting in the opposite direction of the meteors no matter which way you are flying to keep them from hitting you. ~~~~ Mine Layer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEMIN] Look: A Jaggedy type circle Color: Blue, mines are little green circles Base Points: n/a Geoms Dropped: n/a Behavior: These guys fly around laying mines on the ground and then setting them off. To be honest, I've never been hit by one of the mines and don't even know if they can harm you or if they harm the enemies, but you can definitely run into them and will be killed if you do. Strategy: You can't kill these guys, but the mines do indeed have a purpose. If you kill enemies by setting them off you get double points for each enemy they kill, but the same number of Geoms. This can net you some huge points if you kill NUFO's with them (about 150,000 each when you have a 150x multiplier!) <- Thanks to Kevin for this info! Following strategy sent in courtesy of Phizzo89: Basically, any level with a Mine Layer is a guaranteed Gold Medal because this "enemies" actually helps you mroe than it hurts you. The only way that it can harm you is if you run into it, which you really shouldn't do because it's super obvious where it is (in the DS version with the toned down graphics at least). The mines are totally harmless, you can sit right over them when they explode and it won't harm you at all, but it will destroy enemies if they are over top of one when it goes off. A mine layer will lay about 6-8 mines and then after that it will keep moving around, but won't lay any more mines until you blow up the ones that are already out there. To trigger a mine you simply fly over it (completely over it, not just skim the edge) and about 1.5 seconds later that mine will blow up creating a chain reaction to any other mines within range. So, where this really comes in handy is when your screen is packed and your getting rocked just fly over a mine and set it off to take care of this guys really easy and get some major points. So, set off one of these mines in a row of them when the screen is jam packed and your bound to not only clear it but get literally millions of points from it. Another good use of them is not only for points, but as a last stand type of thing. If your about to die and there are mines around try to set them off to give you a fighting chance. The rate that Mines are laid is rather slow and there doesn't seem to be any way to speed it up. So, it's recommended that you simply let it lay it's mines and leave them alone until you are ready to use them or have no other choice, but to set them off. That's all there is to it! Drive directly over one to set off a chain reaction of all that are near and do some major screen clearing and insane point grabbing. ~~~~ Flipper ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[#NEFLI] Look: Square Color: Blue Base Points: n/a Geoms Dropped: n/a Behavior: These are basically moving boundries in the middle of the playing field. You'll know them by the fact that at periodic intervals they will flip and move their position. They can't hurt you and you won't die by running into them, as I said, they are just like walls. But they do block your shots and you do need to work around them to defeat enemies. Strategy: As I said, you can't kill them, so there's really no strategy here. o---------------------------------------------------------------o |/ \| | Galaxies and Planets | 0_______________________________________________________________0 \ [#GALAX] / o-----------------------------------------------------------o *in the following synopis the word planet and level are interchangeable, sorry in advance for the inconsitancy of use* Galaxies is broken down into Galaxies and planets. Each one plays a little differently from the last, well, for the most part. At the beginning of the game the first Galaxy and the first 3 planets are open for you to explore. From there on you'll need to use the Geoms you collect in the levels to buy new galaxies and planets to play in. After playing each planet, if you did well enough you will be rewarded a medal. There are 3 medals in each planet: Bronze, Silver and Gold. Each planet has a different point requirement for each medal. Most planets will start you with 3 lives and 3 bombs and you can gain more lives and bombs by collecting a certain number of geoms. However, some levels will start you with only 1 life and no bombs, in these levels you are limited to one life and no bombs. Whenever you choose a planet you will then be given the choice of which drone you would like to take with you for the current run. The drone you choose has no effect on the medals or geoms in the level, but is really up to your personal preference of which one you like the most. Only the drone you use in that level will gain experience from that level. I think that's all the basics let's take a further look at each galaxy and planet. : note : All costs are referring to Geoms, all medals are referring to points earned in a single run : note : I was going to list the enemy types that you will find in each level, however, most levels seem to change enemy types as you get more and more points, so some of these lists would be huge and others would be incomplete if I wasn't scoring enough points. So, I decided to leave that out. : note : On some of the funny shaped levels I'll try and Ascii draw the layouts, but some are to funny looking and the others are to basic, so no drawings for those. _______ ___/ Alpha \________________________________________________________[#GALPH] Cost: 0 Planets: 3 1. Trainer Eis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 600,000 Silver: 2,500,000 Gold: 6,000,000 Layout: Very small rectangle, no obstacles. Recommended Drone: Any Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Essentially this is meant to be a training level for the game. If you're new to the series this is a good place to play a few times and try and get used to the controls. Enemies come pretty constantly from the corners of the stage and not much more happens. This is also a pretty good stage for leveling up Drones due to it's easy difficulty. 2. Trainer Duo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 400,000 Silver: 1,750,000 Gold: 6,000,000 Layout: Larger square grid, no obstacles. Recommended Drone: Any Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Yet another training level. Slow to start, but kicks it in to gear not to far in. You'll be faced with a ton of enemies before your a million points in. Just keep practicing and learning how to play the game here, it's a good stage for learning how to move and handle lots of enemies at the same time. 3. Claeis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 600,000 Silver: 2,500,000 Gold: 6,000,000 Layout: Large Diamond Recommended Drone: Any Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This planet is the last of the training planets and is literally like the last one tilted 45 degrees on it's side except this one takes even longer to up it's difficulty. ______ __/ Beta \__________________________________________________________[#GBETA] Cost: 10,000 Planets: 4 1. Maseis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 3,000,000 Silver: 8,500,000 Gold: 20,000,000 Layout: ______________________ / \ | \ | | \__ / \___________________/ Recommended Drone: Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This level will be your first encounter with Asteroids and can be overwhelming at first. At the beginning of the level you'll only have 1 or 2 asteroids on screen at a time, but it doesn't take long for there to be quite a few more surrounding you along with Wanderers spawning regularly. Due to the level layout being very short you'll want to work up and down as little as possible and left and right as much as possible. Since on the left and right there are flat areas you can get the asteroids wedged into, your best bet is to shoot them into those directions so that they explode while they are in there and all the enemies are all bunched up with nowhere to go for you to destroy very quick and easily. Keep in mind as well that you do have bombs on this stage and don't be afraid to use them in a situation where you get cornered. Watch out as well for the Spinner Asteroids when they come out because there will be a lot of Tiny Spinners for you to deal with when you get the main Spinners defeated and if you are cornered when you destroy those Asteroids you can easily cost yourself a life. 2. Claduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 860 Bronze: 2,000,000 Silver: 5,000,000 Gold: 11,000,000 Layout: Large Square, no obstacles. Recommended Drone: Turret, Attack or Defend. Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o I recommend the 3 drones above because they all help you attack and defeat enemies and this level has a lot of enemies. The reason there are so many enemies here is because a lot of Generators spawn on this planet. Mainly Grunt and Wanderer Generators, but when there are 3 or 4 of them on screen at a time you can easily find yourself in a sea of 100+ Wanderers. Granted these aren't to hard to kill and can actually be a lot of fun to battle against such ridiculous numbers it's nice to have a drone out there who's helping you out to watch your back and fend off these guys with you. There's really not to much strategy though because the challenge is just that there are a ton of enemies. I personally like to kind of stay close to an edge (but not on the edge so you don't get enemies spawned on top of you) and shoot towards the middle. This allows me to clear out lots of enemies while being out of harms way a bit. But then when a lot of enemies get close to me I just fly straight through them all shooting to another side and go back and forth until I have a comfortable spot to sit again. Trust in your guns on this one. Also keep an eye out for Gravity Wells appearing in the parts of the screen that you can't see because if you set one off and don't know it, it doesn't take much time for it to fill up and explode because of the number of enemies spawning on this planet. 3. Sureis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 875 Bronze: 400,000 Silver: 1,850,000 Gold: 5,000,000 Layout: Large Octagon Recommended Drone: Defend or Turret Starting Lives: 1 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Once again because there are no boundries and this planet has a lot of open space I'm recommending you use a drone that can help you fend off enemies. Since you only have 1 life I dropped Attack off the list and I highly recommend Defend because it shoots behind you and can get that one you don't see. This level starts off with a bang though, a lot of Wanderers and Grunts right from the beginning. Like I said, it's an open area so there is a decent amount of room to move, but you have to be extra careful with only 1 life and no bombs. Since the level is basically circular in shape it's really easy to just fly around in circles alternating shots between straight ahead of you and behind you. Flying in circles will cause enemies to cluster up behind you and just kinda linger chase you so then when you get an opening in front of your ship you can shoot at the mass behind you and collect some serious points. Defend helps out a lot here to because it's always shooting behind you so you only have to half worry about that mass. 4. Bateis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 1,775 Bronze: 3,500,000 Silver: 7,000,000 Gold: 14,000,000 Layout: Rectangle with zig-zagged edges ______________________ \ / / \ \ / / \ \ / / \ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Recommended Drone: Turret or Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This level is what I call wave based. Most other levels have enemies kind of randomly spawning all over the place, but this one is really set up in waves. A line of enemies all across the top will head down, then another, etc. Throughout this time there will be random spawns here and there, but for the most part it'll be waves coming down from the top. This leaves the obvious strategy of hanging out by the bottom. What I like to do is kinda linger in the middle of the screen and move from left to right while shooting at the top of the screen while waves appear. This makes it pretty easy to take out the waves right when they come out. You have to keep your eye out for those randomly spawning enemies though because when they get beneath you it's easy for them to kill you if you aren't careful. Not to long in you'll also find that Generators start appearing at the bottom. When this happens you're probably going to want to make them priority so do you don't get cornered. The many creveces in this screen can be good for trapping enemies in, but bad for getting yourself trapped in. Especially if something decides it's going to spawn there while you're in there so be careful you don't put yourself in one. There are a lot of Dart enemies in this level so watch out for them and their funky pattern as well. After playing this one for a short time though you'll get in a quick habit of how to take care of things. _______ __/ Gamma \_________________________________________________________[#GGAMM] Cost: 30,000 Planets: 5 1. Flieis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 2,000,000 Silver: 5,500,000 Gold: 12,500,000 Layout: Small Octagon with several flippers Recommended Drone: Sweep or Snipe Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This stage is really tiny and the flippers can make it a real pain to defeat the enemies because you can't shoot through them, but the enemies can move through them. There are a lot of enemies in this stage for how small it is and the Generators adn Gravity Well's don't help any. I recommend the sweep drone a lot (especially at higher levels) because all the flippers stop bullets so any attacking drone is only going to help so much, but the sweep drone will help fend off anything that gets to close to you because it spins around you constantly. I think that the snipe can shoot through the flippers, which is why I recommend it, but I'm not positive on this. If someone wanted to double check that'd be great. Being another circular level I like to kind of do the circle thing around this one like the other octagon level, but because of the flippers I do a lot more target focused moving than just circling. The Generators are a for sure target everytime I see one, I like to go straight for them and take them out and then focus on the other things around. 2. Vareis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 2,150 Bronze: 5,000,000 Silver: 9,000,000 Gold: 33,000,000 Layout: Open Square with angled corners Recommended Drone: Defend, Turret or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This level is a huge cluster of enemies. From the beginning there are tons of tons of enemies. This is why I recommend having a drone that can help you attack them or defend yourself. There aren't any Generators to watch out for. But you'll get all kinds of other basic enemies. The best strategy in my opinion is to go the circle route around this one. It's held true for Retro Evolved along with other levels in this game, but it's really a pretty simple and effective strategy. Just keep going in circles letting enemies build up behind you shooting straight ahead and taking out the cluster behind you when you get the chance. Keep your eyes out for the Snakes and the Repulsor's that start coming out not far in. Good news is though because of the large number of enemies in this level it's easy to gain extra lives and extra bombs. 3. Mineis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 3,200 Bronze: 5,000,000 Silver: 15,000,000 Gold: 50,000,000 Layout: Large octagon with Mine Layers Recommended Drone: Defend or Sweep. Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Ahh, the mine layers. I don't quite understand these guys, but they just kind of fly around laying mines everywhere. If you run into them, they will cost you your life, however, I don't know that the mines really do any harm. You also can't kill them. So, for these reasons, I consider them to be an obstacle. So, keep your eye out for them. This level once again has a lot of enemies, however, requires a lot more Geoms to gain bombs or lives so it's likely that you won't be gaining to many throughout playing like you may have in the last one. On a more positive note, 50,000,000 points will come a lot quicker on this one that the 33,000,000 on the last level. There are a lot of Darts and Gravity Wells along with most of the basic enemies in this level so you need to kind of curve the way your playing based on the types of enemies that are currently out. The Defend will help a lot with it's backwards shooting, but I also like sweep because bullets get stopped by the mines and sweep is also protecting close by. Not to much of a technical strategy though. I recommend the circling technique as usual and keep the number of Darts and Gravity Wells on screen down as they are probably the most dangerous. 4. Batduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 9,300 Bronze: 2,500,000 Silver: 6,000,000 Gold: 16,500,000 Layout: Jagged edged Octagon Recommended Drone: Turret or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Lots of Spinners in this level make it very difficult to manevuer comfortably. Most of the enemy waves like to appear on either 2 or all sides of your ship at the same time so you are almost having to cut through enemies to get to a save zone and clear the screen off. These Spinners can make this a very uneasy task due to the Tiny Spinners that they are always spawning. I'm not really sure what to recommend because you really have to just cut back and forth through the enemies and try and keep yourself out of the creveces, but around the edges to clear out the middle areas. 5. Orbeis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 25,750 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 2,500,000 Gold: 6,000,000 Layout: Octagon with Black Hole Recommended Drone: Defend or Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This level has a Black Hole in the middle of it which isn't dangerous to you at all, but will create a clockwise or counterclockwise pull on everything in the level. So, my thought was if you're always flying against the pull then the enemies will always be coming from in front of you and all you have to do is shoot ahead. I brought in the Defend drone just in case anything snuck behind me or if I wanted to fly the opposite way to collect so Geoms it would take care of enemies coming at me. It's a pretty simple level though. Just keep switching directions and shooting straight ahead. It takes time, but that's really all I could find to do here. _______ __/ Delta \_________________________________________________________[#GDELT] Cost: 50,000 Planets: 6 1. Clatris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 1,500,000 Silver: 3,500,000 Gold: 7,000,000 Layout: Large Hexagon Recommended Drone: Defend, Turret or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Pretty standard level. The hexagon shape isn't much different than the Octagon, you have no reason to stick yourself in the top and bottom corners so it's basicallly just a circle while playing. If you've been following this guide like a walkthrough you can probably predict the strategy I'm about to give, if you just jumped into this level I'll state it again for good measure. Go in circles, let the enemies bunch up behind you and take them out when you get the chance. Defend is a great Drone to use because it shoots behind you while you fly forward, but turret helps out to because it'll clear out a lot of dudes while you fly around. There are a particularly large amount of snakes in this level so keep your eyes out for them and shoot for the head. You'll also encounter Mutator's though they look more threatening than they really are. 2. Masduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 3,500 Bronze: 6,000,000 Silver: 11,000,000 Gold: 27,500,000 Layout: ____________ ______ / \____/ \ | \ \ | | / / | \________________________/ Recommended Drone: Attack or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This is another claustrophobic asteroid filled level. Up until the Bronze medal is pretty slow and you'll only need to focus on one Asteroid at a time; general rule applies, keep 'em cornered and take 'em out quick. I recommend the attack drone because then you always have double the fire power on the Asteroids. I don't recommend defend or turret because the last thing you want in a level like this is an asteroid behind you exploding and sending enemies at you while you are destroying one in front of you and then you end up with enemies on all sides and no where to go. After the bronze medal this level gets real frantic real fast though because generators start coming out along with Gravity Wells. The Generators like to spawn in large groups, like 4 or 5 of them at the same time so do all that is in your power to destroy them as quick as possible because they can make impossible amounts of enemies along with the increasingly rapid spawning asteroids. Keep the Asteroids cornered no matter how many appear on screen and don't let one side build up while you take out the other side because then you won't even be able to work through the other side. Try to keep your destruction evenly spaced out and you should be able to rack up some major points here. 3. Zooeis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 4,525 Bronze: 200,000 Silver: 650,000 Gold: 2,500,000 Layout: /\__________________/\ \ / | __ __ | | |__| /\ |__| | | __ \/ __ | | | | | | | | |__| |__| | | __ /\ __ | | |__| \/ |__| | / __________________ \ \/ \/ Recommended Drone: Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Now, lets look at the layout of this level for a second. It's small first off, and all of those blocks and diamonds are obstacles in your way. You can't pass through them, your bullets can't and nor can the enemies. So you've got a few tight corridors to work with. Enemies like to spawn from all four corners in large numbers and generators like to appear somewhere in the middle. Because the enemies in this game don't exactly have intelligence, you can use all of the boundries to your advantage. For example, if enemies appear in the middle and you are on the bottom and sit right under one of the side blocks shooting towards the middle they'll kind of struggle their way around the block to get to you and get hit right when they get around. This is a good strategy to keep in mind. The problem is that large masses like to appear in the corners, more specifically - more than one corner at a time. So you need to watch out for those guys while dealing with guys in the middle. Although it doesn't sound like it would work in this level, I like to take care of the corner spawning guys by doing circles around the outside corridor. It's such a tight space that nothing can really get you from the side as long as you keep on moving. When Generators appear in the middle (as they like to do) I like to do a quick run through there and then stop on the other side and shoot back towards the middle to take out any followers. You'll probably get in a pretty decent rythmn after playing the level a bit. I recommend the Sweep drone because it's always around you and if anythings tried to get you from the side when you're rushing it has a good chance of taking it out. Anything that shoots is pretty much useless with all these obstacles to block shots. 4. Fliduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 5,225 Bronze: 2,300,000 Silver: 4,750,000 Gold: 9,000,000 Layout: Flipper obstacles _____ | | |__ |__ | | |__ |__ | | |_____| Recommended Drone: Defend or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This is officially a level that you cannot play by going around in circles because the layout simply will not allow it. So, I like to basically play this level in quadrants. I consider each square it's own quadrent. The enemies in this level sort of come in phases. There will be no enemies, or very few enemies for awhile, then you'll get a bunch of (probably wanderer) spawns from a quadrent or two, then probably some generators and random spawns, then it repeats. During the down times I like to just travel up and down through all quadrents killing off the NUFO's around and any random enemies that appear. Then when the mass wanderer spawns start to happen I hang out around there and take them out. When a quad is clear I move on to the neighboring one to see if anything is happening there. If there is something, I deal with it, if not I move on to the next. Whenever Generators appear I hang out by them for awhile as if they were mass wanderer spawn points and take care of anything they generate along with the Generator itself. Rinse and repeat. It's a pretty slow paced level and isn't to difficult. Because of it's shape the defense drone is pretty good so you can basically be shooting through all of the quadrents at the same time. 5. Battris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 9,000 Bronze: 3,000,000 Silver: 5,500,000 Gold: 19,000,000 Layout: A jig-jagged square /\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \ | / | \ | / | \/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Recommended Drone: Defend or Turret Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Very similar to the last level that looked like this only turned 90 degrees. Enemies like to appear in waves on the right side and head left. So, what works for me is to have a drone attacking with me and hang out near the left side attacking the right in top to bottom type movements. Keep a close eye out for Gravity Wells that like to appear in line with the enemy waves. Keep an eye to your backside though for Gravity Wells and other mischievious beings. If that doesn't help you much check out planet Bateis in the Beta galaxy because it was basically the same level. Maybe that strategy will help you out. 6. Surpente o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 36,250 Bronze: 800,000 Silver: 2,500,000 Gold: 6,500,000 Layout: Octagon with jagged edges Recommended Drone: Defend or Attack Starting Lives: 1 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o I am ridiculously bad at the levels where you only get one life, so chances are this won't be of to much help. Let's give it a try though. As far as I can tell this level only spawns Grunts. The problem is that it spawns them all around you all the time. It likes to do these massive circle spawns so you're always surrounded. This forces you to have to give a lot of trust in your ship and fly and shoot in the same direction. When a big spawn comes, pick a direction immediately and fly straight at it shooting that way to clear your path and get out of the middle of those Grunts. Once you are out of the middle you can shoot the rest of them with easy. As the level goes on there gets to be so many spawns that you don't get this "ease" time, so you'll need to basically go with the circle method and just fly in circles killing everything in front of you, but also watch for Grunts that spawn to close to the sides of you because you've only got one life and can't afford any mistakes. _________ __/ Epsilon \_______________________________________________________[#GEPSI] Cost: 90,000 Planets: 7 1. Roceis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 2,250,000 Gold: 5,000,000 Layout: Rectangle with 2 small square barriers, Meteor Showers Recommended Drone: Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Bringing the Defend Drone into this level is invaluable as far as I'm concerned. The only enemy in this level are Wanderers and they are of pretty much no threat because they just hang around and there aren't even that many of them. At the start be very aggressive taking out the Wanderers to build up your multiplier and get to your higher level gun. Not to far in Meteor Showers start. This is why you need to have Defend. When the showers started coming I literally sat in one place and just shot into the showers with a little bit of a spraying motion, very small spray. Just in case any of the Meteors weren't in line this spray took care of them. While I was doing this defend would take care of any Wanderers that spawned behind me. If any started coming from the side I just took a half second to do a quick spray that way. Being the lowest intelligence in Geometry Wars these guys are really easy to take out fast. After the Silver Medal point you start to get dual Meteor Showers coming from opposite direction. The Defend Drone makes taking care of these just as easy as the single showers. Stay stationary and just shoot into the shower, watch out for slightly out of line Meteors, but for the most part is easy shooting. 2. Varduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 4,575 Bronze: 1,250,000 Silver: 3,400,000 Gold: 8,250,000 Layout: __/\__ | | / \ \ / |__ __| \/ Recommended Drone: Turret or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This planet has a lot of empty space, but you'll be grateful for it when the mass tons of enemies start coming at you. Pretty much all the standard enemies are here in fair amounts: Spinners, Grunts, Weavers and Gravity Wells. Standard rules apply to, circle theory. Try to keep moving in circles letting all the guys build up behind you while taking out the ones in front of you and then the cluster when you have some breathing room. Turret and Defend will both help due to the sheer amount of room in this level. With the large number of foes it can be hard to stay alive, but easy to collect lives and bombs. 3. Minduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 6,675 Bronze: 5,000,000 Silver: 25,000,000 Gold: 50,000,000 Layout: Mine layers _________________ / \ / \ \ / \_________________/ Recommended Drone: Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Alright, since I've had some very helpful info sent in to me about Mine Layers I now understand why this level is set up how it is. There are a few Mine Layers you'll need to watch out for running in to, but mainly your going to want to use their mines to net you some huge points. If you've read the Mine Layer strategy in the enemies section you're good to go on this planet already, but let me give you a short run down here (head there for more info). As I said there are a few Mine Layers here laying mines for you, your going to want to avoid flying over the mines because they will be very useful to you after a handful of them get laid out on screen. It takes a bit of time for the enemies to really swarm up in this level, but use the early ones to build up your combo then when the NUFO's start pouring on screen and the enemy spawns start building up start setting off the mines. To set off a mine just fly completely over it (not partially, COMPLETELY) and this will start a chain reaction to all nearby mines and every enemy killed by a mine will give you DOUBLE points! A few good mine explosions and you'll have a Gold Medal like it was nothing. 4. Loseis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 8,750 Bronze: 1,250,000 Silver: 4,250,000 Gold: 10,000,000 Layout: _________________ ____________ | _____ |_| ____ | | |_ | ____| | | | | | |____ |_ | |___ |___| |______| | |____________________________| Recommended Drone: Sweep or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This is a fun chaotic level here. You don't haev much room to move around and the enemies spawn quick and all over the place. This planet spawns a lot of Grunts and Darts. The Grunts are easy to take care of, but be weary of the Darts when rounding corners. I like to treat this level like it's 2 halves, the right and left. During the early parts you can kind of wander where you please because it's not to hectic yet. Hoewver, as it goes on you'll probably want to get in the habit of having a pattern for yourself. I go across the top from right to left and clear out the far left side then run across the bottom and clear out the right side. If both sides are ever clear and stuff gets stuck in the middle I then take the time to clear that part. I like to just keep repeating this pattern because the top and bottom parts are nice thin paths you can't really get hit on and the sides are where enemies build up and you'll rack up all your points and Geoms. As far as Drones go the Sweep is the ultimate for this level because it can sweep through the boundries. For example, on the right boundry thing if you sit on the bottom of the part that sticks out to the left and there are enemies on top your sweep can kill them without you even having any risk! It's great! 5. Surduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 9,775 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 3,000,000 Gold: 8,000,000 Layout: _______ _______ / \/ \ | | \ / / \ | | \_______/\_______/ Recommended Drone: Defend or Turret Starting Lives: 1 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Another 1 life level, this one is pretty hectic, but it's not that bad. The circle method implies, if you don't know what that is by this point in the game just look back in pretty much any of the previous planets and read up on it. The little peaks that stick out can be off-putting sometimes when circling around because you need to basically stay that far away from the edges at all times. But with a few tries you'll get the feel for the area. Lot's of Grunts and Wanderers to fend off, so no real tricky enemies and the Defend and Turret Drones will help immensely. 6. Battetra o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 18,200 Bronze: 2,500,000 Silver: 5,500,000 Gold: 20,000,000 Layout: Kinda along these lines... /\/\/\/\ / \ \ / / \ \/\/\/\/\/ Recommended Drone: Defend, Turret or Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This level can be very difficult because it has mass amounts of all the annoying enemies. Lots of Spinners, Weavers, Snakes and Neutrons. All together these can be a major headache because you don't have a ton of room and you'll have to do a lot of cutting through packs of spinners which is always a dangerous stunt. However, it is do-able as long as you are careful and vicious. Any drone that will be attacking with you or watching yoru backside is a plus becasue you need all the firepower you can get here. You never want to find yourself surround becasue with the peaks in the boundries there's really nowhere to hide without trapping yourself. If you ever get surround don't hesitate to use a bomb. Especially if you've got Snakes and Neutrons nearby, those are probably the most dangerous to have together because they are both very annoying to kill. I don't actually do much circling around in this level, but I do a lot more straight path cutting from one side to the other. I like to cut through the thin areas so they all bunch up behind me, but then turn around and kill as many as I can right away before cutting again. If you want to use this method I would recommend the Attack or Turret drones over the Defense one since you'll be facing the enemies more than staying ahead. 7. Clahex o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 38,500 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 4,250,000 Gold: 11,500,000 Layout: Upside down Triangle Recommended Drone: Defend or Turret Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This can be a tricky level to circle around due to it being a triangle. The Defense drone will help a ton because if you're following the edges of the planet there will always be a pocket behind you and more than likely enemies in that pocket getting shot by your Drones fire. However, there are a ton of enemies on this planet so thats not really enough alone to pass so you need to be doing your part as well. What I like to do is still go around the level in a counter- clockwise fashion but try to avoid the deep pockets, especially the left and right ones. I'm decently comfortable with taking a short break towards the bottom to clear up any followers, but the side ones are to small to sit in and to easy to get trapped in. So, I literally like to take this level one pass at a time. For the most part you'll be seeing Wanderer's in this level which are pretty easy to take care of. Be aware that you are not next to their spawn points when they decide to spawn because thats a sure way to get yourself killed. You'll want to be most aware though of the Gravity Well's that appear because they will fill up quick and there isn't a ton of room to run and hide when they explode. ______ __/ Zeta \__________________________________________________________[#GZETA] Cost: 145,000 Planets: 7 1. Vartris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 2,000,000 Silver: 6,000,000 Gold: 18,750,000 Layout: A giant plus sign Recommended Drone: Sweep or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Being a plus sign there is no circle strategy in this level. For me it became more of a push through then turn around and fight for your life. Which suprisingly worked...for awhile. Around the time you'll receive the silver medal though it changes up a bit from Weavers and Darts to adding Repulsors and Metero Showers which kind of throws everything off. Not to mention the tons of Spinners you'll need to fend off at this point. At this time is when you'll be really thankful for that Drone helping you out because when the Meteor showers start raining down you are going to want to either try to against or with them. In some of the other Meteor Shower levels you can survive easy by flying against them the whole time, but this level has to many enemies and not enough space to do that so you'll need to go with and against it. Trying to perpindicular with it is a bad idea because you have no way of defending yourself against it while flying this way and fending off the enemies in your path. The Defense Drone will help a ton when flying with it because it will destroy the Shower rocks behind you, however Sweep is a great choice to because when you get swarmed it can be a huge help. Not really a whole lot I can help you with here as this stage is pretty tough for me to. It's a very constrained area with a mass amount of tough enemies. Hopefully my little bit of advice helps out. 2. Mastris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 12,500 Bronze: 6,000,000 Silver: 12,750,000 Gold: 25,000,000 Layout: _________ / \_______ / \ | | |__ / \__ | \___________/ Recommended Drone: Attack or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Another claustrophobic Asteroid stage so standard rules apply. Let's cover the basics first. We want a drone that doesn't shoot where we aren't shooting so we don't get suprised by Asteroid's killed behind us. We want a drone that can help us up our attack on what we are focusing on or that sweet close protection of the Sweep drone. We want to corner the Asteroids when we attack them so that the enemies are concentrated when they explode and we can eliminate them fast. Don't let one side fill up with Asteroids, try to evenly disperse your attacking. Now, this area in perticular is the smallest one yet. There is literally nowhere to run. On top of that it likes to spawn enemies (Grunts a lot of the time) all the way around the border no matter if there are Asteroids on screen or not. So you need to make sure you are ready to fend off these guys while taking on the Asteroids because this is going to be a very hectic battle (but a fun one!) 3. Zooduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 12,750 Bronze: 180,000 Silver: 800,000 Gold: 3,250,000 Layout: /\_____________/\ \ __ __ / | / / \ \ | | \/ /\ \/ | | \/ | | /\ /\ | | \/ \/ | | /\ /\ /\ | | \_\ \/ /_/ | / ____________ \ \/ \/ Recommended Drone: Sweep or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o First off, I apologize for the really pitiful Ascii Layout here, it looks pretty bad, but point is we have another small field with lots of objects in our way so we wanna go with the Sweep to attack through them and give us a bit of a shield since bullets from any attacking drone will be stopped by the boundry walls doins us next to no good. If you've already played some of the stages of the same essence as this one you should have a good idea of how to treat it. If you haven't, I'll give you the low down. Stick to the outside edges as much as possible and keep moving when there are a lot of enemies coming at you from either side, or both. The areas are so thin that it's very difficult for enemies to hit you from the sides, or even for Tiny Spinners to get you. If you need an escape route jet through the middle to one of the other sides and then start looping around again. Since the A.I. isn't super intelligent you can use this to your advantage by hanging out underneath one of the blocades and if the enemies are coming from the other side of it they will kind of slowly inch around it and you can pound shots into the opening where they will appear killing them the second they round the corner. Most spawns come from the 4 corners, but others appear in the middle at times, this includes some Generators. This level in particular likes to release a lot of Spinners so be careful of the Tiny Spinners, but like I said, they have a much more difficult time getting you here in these constrained areas than in big open areas where there movement pattern can be hard to keep track of. Just keep moving at a steady pace and keep shooting straight ahead. If Sweep doesn't work out for you try using Defend because it will cover your backside well when traveling around the border. 4. Flitris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 13,500 Bronze: 550,000 Silver: 4,400,000 Gold: 12,000,000 Layout: Lots of Flippers _______ _______ / \/ \ | | \ / / \ | | \_______/\_______/ Recommended Drone: Sweep or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o I'm a little weary to put Defend as a recommended drone here because of all the Flippers it's shots will get blocked a lot. However, not to far into this planet Meteor Showers begin and not to long after you start getting Meteor Showers from 2 sides at the same time and this is when Defend will really help you out. Although I think Sweep is an excellent choice as well, you'll probably have to try both out and see which method works best for you. This planet has a lot of Wanderers spawning about and darts flying around, not to forget the Meteor Showers I mentioned above. These types of enemies aren't normally to hard to avoid, but with the Flippers added in your path is constantly changing and you need to pay a lot of attention to where you're going so that you don't get caught behind a flipper in the middle of a Shower (ha, that sounds kinda funny). The best strategy I can think of right now is to really play along with what the Meteors do. Try to always go against them and make them your focus while taking out the enemies instead of trying to take out enemies while avoiding the shower, if you catch my drift. The enemies themselves really shouldn't give you much trouble, you've faced way worse in say the Asteroid levels, it's really just practicing how to deal with the Meteor Showers. 5. Surtris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 13,500 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 2,500,000 Gold: 6,000,000 Layout: __/\__ | | / \ \ / |__ __| \/ Recommended Drone: Defend Starting Lives: 1 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This level can be very hard due mainly to the Neutrons. If you are good at defending off Neutrons you've got nothing to worry about, if you aren't then you're probably going to have a lot of trouble here like I do. Another single life level, so there are no chance to mess up. This level takes a long time to build up your multiplier, which also makes it harder to gold star. Here you'll get alternating spawns between Grunts and Neutrons. The Netron's are what are really a pain because they are fast and if you let one sneak up behind you you're more than likely dead. I bring in the Defend Drone to try and prevent this sneak attack, but it's still not hard to let one get you. They usually spawn in groups of 4's (at least for the beginning) and they spawn all around you so they group in at you. What I did was a lot of hanging out in the middle then after I heard them spawn (yes, the sound helps on this stage) I would pick a direction and fly and shoot in it then do a bit of a C sweep motion to cause the Neutrons to gather up behind me where I could take them out easier. This is pretty much the best I've got to tell you here because I was really bad at this level and couldn't seem to get any better. Anyone who wants to send in some tips/tricks feel free. 6. Batpente o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 26,350 Bronze: 1,500,000 Silver: 4,500,000 Gold: 14,250,000 Layout: /\/\/\/\ | | | | | | \/\/\/\/ Recommended Drone: Attack, Turret or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o You may recognize the layout of this planet from some previous ones and realize that it is yet another Wave planet! Except this time there are 2 flat sides! Yeah, you get waves from both sides. This planet is also smaller than the previous wave based planets, however, I think it actually makes your job a little bit easier... at least for awhile. You will get waves of all the standard types of enemies: Spinners, Weavers, Grunts, Neutrons, Snakes and all those wonderfully hidden Gravity Wells you love so much. These waves come fast to. You're going to want to do all that is in your power to destroy everything as quickly as possible when it spawns. I like to really stay in there as close as possible so that I can not only take things out, but collect the Geoms they drop. One problem I find a lot with the wave stages is that I don't collect many Geoms since they all fall where the next wave spawns. If you stay in close enough you will be able to destory the enemies and collect them, you'll especially want to try and do this with Weaver waves since they drop the big Geoms. Up until you reach the Gold medal amount you'll only have to deal with waves from one side at a time. That side will alternate periodically, but it won't be both sides at once. So just hang in the middle till you know what side it's going to be and then go to town on the wave. Never stray to far to one side or the other. After you get the Gold Medal your on your own because you get crazy waves from both sides at the same tim eand I don't even know what to tell you to help you out there. 7. Virduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 49,500 Bronze: 625,000 Silver: 1,250,000 Gold: 4,500,000 Layout: ______ / \__ / \ | \ | _ | / | \ | / \/ \ | | | | \__ / \___ / \________/ Recommended Drone: Defend or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o I had some trouble getting into a good rhythmn with this level and I think it's because of the Cell Masses. They are kind of a funky enemy because they just hang out and multiply. So while you will want to take care of them, don't make them your main focus. The Mutators will give you a lot more trouble than they will. There isn't a ton of enemies in this level, but the Mutators can give you a lot of trouble if you don't take care of them in the way that Generators can. Speaking of which, a few Generators show in this level as well, but they are few and far between so just take care of them as you come across them. The Mutators though like to run around and can be tricky to get because of that one island in this level. It doesn't look like much, but I found it in my way quite often and caused a few more Mutateds and Gravity Well explosions than I was comfortable with. As I said, I wasn't very good at this level so I don't have a good strategy to share, but taking care of the Mutators and watching out for the Gravity wells is key. Please send me any strategies you may have to help out here. _____ __/ Eta \___________________________________________________________[#GETAA] Cost: 200,000 Planets: 8 1. Flitetra o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 1,500,000 Silver: 4,750,000 Gold: 9,000,000 Layout: Puzzle piece with lots of flippers __ __ __| |__| |__ |__ __| __| |__ |__ __ __| |__| |__| Recommended Drone: Sweep or maybe Snipe Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Ugh, the flippers! So many of them to. This level has a lot of places to get stuck in and a lot of flippers to get caught on. So, that can cause it to be quite a headache. There are also a lot of Darts, which are unpredictable and then Snakes and Generators later on which just don't help anything. I recommend Sweep as usual for flipper levels because it can attack through the flippers. I'm also recommending Snipe for the same reason, however, I don't use it much so thats up to your personal testing to figure out how it works for you. Strategy wise you need to be aware of the middle area because Darts like to spawn in real big packs there. There have definitely been a few times I was hanging out in the area and was killed by spawning Darts. So be aware of that and also try to keep yourself from getting cornered because with all these edges it's easy to get backed into one and then get killed there by some Darts or Spinners lingering around. I like to kind of treat the middle of this level as the main enemy area and cut through it a lot from side to side trying to keep everything piled in there. Of course you'll need to take care of the enemies that spawn around the edges as well, but if you can get everything kind of coralled you'll be much better off instead of having stuff everywhere attacking you from all sides all the time. This level can be fairly difficult, mainly thanks to the flippers, but with some practice it can be manageable. 2. Losduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 1,250,000 Silver: 3,500,000 Gold: 9,500,000 Layout: _______ ________ / \____________/ \ / \ | ___ __ | | / / \ \ | \___ \ / \/ ____/ \ __ / \ / \ / \ \__/ / | | | | \ / \______/ Recommended Drone: Defend or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This level isn't to bad, the shape can cause you to corner yourself a lot so always be aware of whats around you. I found myself doing a lot of circling then hanging out in the bottom, but it could get very unnerving at times. Because of the straightaways down up the sides, across the top and through the middle I recommend defend to help you clear out stuff coming from behind you. There are a lot of generators in this level (and the number only increases as time goes on) so you'll be dealing with a lot of enemies. The Spinners can be particularly annoying because it's so easy to get cornered trying to back away from them that you'll often end up getting hit by the Tiny Spinners while cornered. I tried to play the level from Generator to Generator. Targetting one and taking care of it and then moving on to another. When I didn't have one in site I would just loop around the outside edge of this planet taking out whatever was around. As with most planets that have boundries I don't like to spend much time in the middle because it's to easy to get attacked from all sides. So, basically the circle method applies and Defend will be of help or Sweep for when things get tight. 3. Mintris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 22,550 Bronze: 5,000,000 Silver: 25,000,000 Gold: 55,000,000 Layout: Funky shape with several Mine Layers __ __ / \__/ \ | \ | \ \__ \__ \__ \ \ \__ | \ \ \ | | \ | | | \ _/ \______/ Recommended Drone: Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Alright, Mine Layer strategy applies here in the full. Use it and you'll have a Gold in no time. Read up in the enemies section on Mine Layers to get the full strategy, but here it is in short. Take out the early enemies to build up your multiplier and let the Mine Layers lay their mines out for you to use when the enemies really start building up. When the waves start coming fast and the screen is getting full drive COMPLETELY over a mine to set off a chain reaction of all the mines on screen which will annihilate the enemies and give you DOUBLE points for each one killed by a mine! 4. Mastetra o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 22,735 Bronze: 4,500,000 Silver: 9,250,000 Gold: 20,000,000 Layout: _____________________ / \_____ \ \ _\ _____ \ / / \ | \ \_____/ ___/ \ / \____________________/ Recommended Drone: Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This stage is a crazy hectic Asteroid stage just as the other Asteroid stages like to be. However, after a few plays I switched to the Attack Drone and went to town on it. So, that is why I recommend only it here. This Asteroid stage is more hectic than the others have been for the fact that it likes to spawn a lot of other enemies along with spawning a lot of Asteroids. However it's got a good crevece on the right side to destroy them in and 2 good ones on the left to keep them really focus when they explode. You'll get a lot of Neutron Asteroids in this level which can be very hard to deal with if you don't keep them focused when you destroy them because the Neutron's move so fast. But honestly, use the Attack drone and just work your way around from the right, to the top left, down and back to the right powering through everything in yoru path and you'll rock this one in no time. It's crazy and chaotic, but it's really not that bad. 5. Clatetra o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 23,800 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 3,250,000 Gold: 7,500,000 Layout: _________________ / \ / \ \ / \_________________/ Recommended Drone: Defend, Attack or Turret Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This is a good old fashioned hectic circle method stage. There are no tricks or traps here, but you get a healthy dosage of all the classic enemies: Weavers, Grunts and Wanderers. Not to mention plenty of Generators upping the number of enemies on screen. The Circle Method in short: Move in a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion around the screen shooting straight ahead letting the enemies gather behind you and then when you have some breathing room turn around and destroy the mass that is following behind you. This method works great, but I found the biggest hassle for me in this level was the Mutateds. Mutadeds are very hard to see in the clusters of enemies in this level and I often ran into them without even noticing that they were there which of course resulted in me losing lives. I'm not really sure how to tell you to avoid this, but I guess I'll just leave it as a warning to you. Any Drone that is helping you attack will be a plus in this level because of the volume of enemies. So, use the standard method and just go to town. 6. Vireis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 33,825 Bronze: 1,750,000 Silver: 5,000,000 Gold: 30,000,000 Layout: ________________ ___/ \ / | / | / | | | | ______ | \_______/ \_______/ Recommended Drone: Attack or Turret Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This level is extremely claustrophobic and flooded with some annoying enemies like Mutators and Gravity Wells. What I find is best to do is to position yourself in either the bottom right or left corner and keep your focus on attacking towards the middle. Enemies will spawn in these corners so you need to watch for them and most of the time when they do is when I decide to make a break for the other side. Switching sides periodically will keep the enemies hung up in the middle and attack in this fashion seems to be easisest. This is why I recommend bringing the attack Drone in with you. It will double your firepower on the mass and although the Defense Drone is great, with my back to a wall it doesn't do me much good shooting the wall. The Turret can be of help to if it positions itself in the middle and starts taking enemies out from there, but the down time when it's relocating makes me want to stray away from it a bit. Essentially your going to want to treat this level like its an Asteroid level because there are just a ridiculous amount of enemies in a small area. Keep a close eye out for the Gravity Wells that appear in the middle because they can fill up really fast here. When I see these appear is another time I make a break for the other side being sure to take it out on the way. Watch the Mutators to because they like to appear about 4 or 5 at a time and bunch up together. Stay focused on keeping the enemies in the middle and putting all your attack power on them. It's gonna be pretty crazy by the time you hit 30,000,000. 7. Bathex o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 56,500 Bronze: 1,750,000 Silver: 4,500,000 Gold: 11,000,000 Layout: /\ _| |_ _/ \_ / \ _| |_ / \ \_ _/ | | \_ _/ \_ _/ | | \/ Recommended Drone: Defend or Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 _STRATEGY__ Right when you spawn something like 30 Darts will spawn all around you, this can be overwhelming at first, but you've got like 2 seconds of invincibility at the beginning of the level so pick the top or the bottom and move out of the middle of them. Now, this level likes to constantly spawn enemies like this. All the usuals to: Wanderers, Weavers, Spinners, Darts and Gravity Wells. Towards the Gold Medal point of the level you'll start getting the occasional Snake and a handful of Repulsor's. That's when it starts to get really annoying, but up to that point it's pretty manageable. You'll notice the 4 peaks in the layout of the level. For me, these were key to my survival. I often preach not to ever corner yourself, but in this level I find that there are so many enemies it often helps to corner yourself so you don't have to worry about them coming from the sides, however, enemies also like to spawn like mad in these peaks so you have to watch for that because you don't have much time to form an escape plan when they do. So, there were about 3 things I did while playing this level. First and foremost was the circle method. Going around in circles in the inside part of this level is the easiest way to stay alive and take care of the enemies. As usual with the Circle Method is that I recommend the defend Drone to help get your backside while circling around. This planet really doesn't have much down time though to take out the big mass you accumulate behind you, so when I get them all built up I like to take a break in one of the peaks and just shoot out towards the middle. This causes all the enemies to funnel right into my guns and makes them easy to take out. As I said before though, you need to keep a close eye for enemies spawning in your peak. When they spawn I just jet out straight through the middle and then start circling again, or I just jet back and forth between peaks for a short time. When the Repulsors start coming out though you're probably going to want to back off the peak strategy because when there are 3 or 4 of them and they find your peak you are literally left with no where to run and it's either going to cost you a life, or a bomb. 8. Surtetra o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 70,500 Bronze: 350,000 Silver: 750,000 Gold: 5,000,000 Layout: __ __ __| |__| |__ |__ __| __| |__ |__ __ __| |__| |__| Recommended Drone: Defend Starting Lives: 1 Initial Bombs: 0 _STRATEGY__ Honestly, I'm going to straight up copy and paste the strategy that I wrote up for Surtris in Zeta because this level is almost the same with just a different layout. Here it is: This level can be very hard due mainly to the Neutrons. If you are good at defending off Neutrons you've got nothing to worry about, if you aren't then you're probably going to have a lot of trouble here like I do. Another single life level, so there are no chance to mess up. This level takes a long time to build up your multiplier, which also makes it harder to gold star. Here you'll get alternating spawns between Grunts and Neutrons. The Netron's are what are really a pain because they are fast and if you let one sneak up behind you you're more than likely dead. I bring in the Defend Drone to try and prevent this sneak attack, but it's still not hard to let one get you. They usually spawn in groups of 4's (at least for the beginning) and they spawn all around you so they group in at you. What I did was a lot of hanging out in the middle then after I heard them spawn (yes, the sound helps on this stage) I would pick a direction and fly and shoot in it then do a bit of a C sweep motion to cause the Neutrons to gather up behind me where I could take them out easier. This is pretty much the best I've got to tell you here because I was really bad at this level and couldn't seem to get any better. Anyone who wants to send in some tips/tricks feel free. _______ __/ Theta \_________________________________________________________[#GTHET] Cost: 300,000 Planets: 9 1. Lostris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 2,250,000 Silver: 3,250,000 Gold: 11,250,000 Layout: ____ ____/ \____ / \ / _ _ \ | / | | \ | | / | | \ | / |__/ \__| \ | ___ __ | \ | \ / | / | \ | | / | \ \_| |__/ / \____ _____/ \____/ Recommended Drone: Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 _STRATEGY__ This is a pretty low key level really, decent amount of time between spawns and then an increasing amount of Generators as the level goes on. As you can see by the layout the level is kind of set up like a ring so we'll want to keep with a circling strategy and a Drone like sweep that is going to help protect us when things get close. Lots of Darts, Spinners and Weavers here. The Weavers can be really annoying because they'll get themselves on one side of the middle blockades and when you get around to them they'll jump to the other side. This level seems like it often waits for everything to be gone before it spawns more so situations like this can make it feel really slow. But keep with the circle method around the outside ring, stay out of the middle as much as possible because with multiple Generators out it's really easy to get ambushed from all sides when you get in there. 2. Vartetra o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 0 Bronze: 3,000,000 Silver: 7,000,000 Gold: 20,000,000 Layout: _______ _______ / \/ \ | | \ / / \ | | \_______/\_______/ Recommended Drone: Your favorite! Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 _STRATEGY__ This is a pretty fun level and it ramps up the difficulty pretty fast. At the beginning you'll get a lot of spawns from Darts and Weavers, but not to far in a Mine Layer will appear and everything will change. Now, if you look at the explanation of the Mine Layer enemies in the Enemies Section ( [#ENEMI] ) I've had some contributions that give us some great Mine Layer strategy information. As the level goes on more Mine Layers will appear which gives us even more oppurtunity for big points. Alright, so basically here's how we want to look at this level. The Drone you choose to bring here isn't of as much importance because we are really going to be using the Mine Layers to gather points. As enemies spawn you are going to want to be doing a bit of circling so that they collect behind you, then lead them right over some mines (you'll need to set the first one off) and let the points flow in. If you read the Mine Layer section this will make more sense to you than if you didn't, but everything is written there so I'm not going to rewrite it all here. Now, what we need to watch out for are the Repulsor's that begin appearing up near 20k. You'll have to take care of them just like you do Repulsor's any other time, there's not a different strategy for this level, but I'm giving you a warning now that they can be quite obnoxious when 4 or 5 start appearing at the same time in the clutter. This level is seriously all about the mine layers so use them to your advantage. 3. Poreis o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 42,550 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 2,500,000 Gold: 6,000,000 Layout: B = Box/boundry, W = Wormhole _____________ ______________ | b |_| b w | | b | | b b | | b | | b b | | b | | b b | | b | | w b _ b | |______________| |_____________| Recommended Drone: Attack or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This is an interesting level as I don't beleive we've ever dealt with Wormholes up to this point. The Wormholes act just as they should be definition though in that going in one sends you out the other. In this level thats a good thing because the middle section is not much fun to navigate through. As you can see in the layout there are plenty of boxes there that make it like trying to get through a little maze. I recommend bringing in the attack Drone to this level because lots of Asteroids like to appear. They don't spawn super quick, but if you spend to much time on one half of the level you're likely to go to the other side and find 4 or 5 Asteroids waiting for you. Most of the time they are just Wanderers which aren't a big deal, but you want to try and spread your attack over both halves of the level so one side doesn't get to backed up. Be aware that enemies can go through the Wormhole as well so hanging out to close to it may not be very wise and you may get suprised. Enemies will not purposefully use it though, most of the time they will try and traverse through the middle area so you can use the Wormhole for escape when you need to. Not to far in the level Snakes and Repulsor's start to appear which can be decently annoying with all of the Asteroids around, but you'll need to take care of them same as always. This is where the Defend Drone would probably be of more help. However, I get more concerned with getting overwhelmed by the Asteroids than a few Repulsor's. If all else fails you've always got some bombs. One final note is that when you go through a Wormhole you'll have the temporary invincibility you get when you start a level so use that to your advantage if you get cornered. 4. Flipente o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 43,625 Bronze: 2,000,000 Silver: 6,000,000 Gold: 12,000,000 Layout: Lots of flippers, B = Box/Boundry ____________ ___| |___ | b b | | | | b b | |___ ___| |____________| Recommended Drone: Sweep or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This planet isn't to bad, the main challenge is trying to not get stuck behind the flippers. What I actually did though was make it a point to get in there way at the very beginning of the level and I actually got them all pushed up into the top quadrent of the level and then I just did U patterns (instead of circles) between the right, bottom and left quadrants. This gave me a pretty easy time. I recommend the sweep Drone because of the flippers, when you get stuck behind them it just may be your saving grace. But for the most part you've got a lot of standard enemies at a pretty slow, but constant flow so this level didn't boast much trouble or much to worry about. 5. Rocduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 53,675 Bronze: 1,200,000 Silver: 2,600,000 Gold: 5,000,000 Layout: _______________________ / \ | \ | /\ \ | \/ | | /\ / \ \/ | / / | / \_____________________/ Recommended Drone: Defend Starting Lives: 1 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o One of the easier single life levels here actually. There are constant Meteor Showers to watch out for, but it's pretty much all Darts as far as other enemies go. Bring in the Defend Drone to help take care of the Meteor Showers when you need to take care of enemies and vice versa. There are two blockades in the level, but you actually have a pretty decent amount of space to move around. Same rule stands as with other Meteor Shower levels. Try and always be facing into the shower and it'll never bother you. Just watch out for other enemies as you do it, but there aren't to many to bother you on this planet. 6. Orbduo o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 54,700 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 2,500,000 Gold: 4,250,000 Layout: The slashes in the middle are 3d blockades, and there are also some little triangles in the 2 corner peaks, but they would have made the scale of the drawing look awkward so I left them out. _ | \____________ \ \ | / \ \ | / \ | | | | | | \ / | \ \ / | \____________ \ \_| Recommended Drone: Attack, Defend or Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Black Hole levels all seem the same to me and all seem pretty boring. You can't really do much of anything because of the pull from the Black Hole so I choose to just hang out on the bottom and face "upstream" or against the pull from the Black Hole so that the enemies are always coming to me and not from behind. With this one in perticular if you just sit kinda under the left blocade and shoot up the left side at an angle nothing will ever get to you from that side, but you do have to watch things coming down on top of you (the Neutrons and Mayflys especially). To me though there's nothing more to it, so if you have a better idea, by all means, send it my way. 7. Clapente o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 65,950 Bronze: 2,500,000 Silver: 6,250,000 Gold: 18,000,000 Layout: Really big square Recommended Drone: Attack or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Nothing I say here is really going to help you on this level because there are no boundries, no crazy Wormholes, just all those wonderful enemies here to hunt you down. Spinners, Weavers, Gravity Wells, Mutators, Generaters, Wanderers, Snakes and worst of all, Repulsors. The Repulsor's are what always do me in. Circle Method applies, but that's really the best advice I can give. 8. Bathepta o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 97,900 Bronze: 2,000,000 Silver: 6,250,000 Gold: 19,000,000 Layout: Kinda like a Cog Recommended Drone: Attack or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This is a pretty hard level because it's pretty hectic and there really isn't much room to move around, especially when trying to avoid the Tiny Spinners and Repulsors. I want to recommend the Circle Method, but the spawns like to come from all 4 corners so it really isn't a very easy method to carry out here. The reason I recommend the Attack or Defend drone is because of these crazy spawns. It's up to you whether you want to put your focus on doubling the attack where your focused or trying to attack to the front and back at the same time. I'd say that both are equally helpful, but either way this stage is going to be difficult. About the time of the Silver medal a lot of Repulsor's start coming out just as the last few levels have done. This is really annoying with all the Tiny Spinners you'll have driving you crazy from all the Spinners you'll be defeating. I didn't have a ton of luck and it took me a few tries to even get up to the Silver Medal, but here's what I ended up doing. I took in the Attack Drone personally right off the bat jumped to the bottom while I was invincible and then started clearing out the Darts. From here I hung out towards the middle and when the bunches of enemies would spawn I would pick one set of them and drive straight through them, then drive my way to the opposite corner and then try and get back to the middle if I could to repeat the process. When the Repulsor's started coming out I tried not to focus on them and keep up the same strategy so when I started driving back to the other side they would all be behind me and I could take them out in a quick sweep. Hopefully that helps you out a bit, this stage won't be easy though. 9. Varpente o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 123,500 Bronze: 2,000,000 Silver: 5,250,000 Gold: 13,000,000 Layout: A big Cog (I know I said the last stage was *like* a cog, but this one literally is a big cog) Recommended Drone: Defend or Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This planet has a lot more room than the last one which makes it a lot easier to navigate around, however, it is actually very similar in design. It's got 8 "pockets" that give it it's cog shape and you are going to want to stay out of these for the same reason I've always preached to stay out of areas like this. This planet has plenty of room for you to use the circle method to gather enemies and let the Defend Drone annihilate or you can annihilate yourself. Now, I'm going to go back on what I just said and tell you that you may want to dip in one of the cog peaks to get in line with the mass following you (if you are circling) and then head straight through them to take them out. But I still stand firmly on the fact that you shouldn't hang out in those areas. With the Defend drone at your back though you should have a pretty easy time. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary on this planet or else I'd write about it to let you know, but I over doubled the Gold Medal just circling around and taking care of things as they come. At this point you should be pretty good friends with your Defend drone and be able to really work it to your advantage. _______ __/ Kappa \_________________________________________________________[#GKAPP] Cost: 550,000 Planets: 8 1. Virtris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 4,500,000 Gold: 9,000,000 Layout: _____________ / \ / \ | /\ \ \ \/ | | | | /\ / | \/ | / / \_____________/ Recommended Drone: Attack or Defend Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o The layout of this level just screams Circle Method and you can trust me that it won't let you down. There are no Repulsor's to worry about here, just a slew or standard type enemies. You'll want to watch for Gravity Wells and Generators because those can both cause problems. But really the majority of your concern is going to be on the Mutators and Cell Masses. As you circle around don't let the Cell Masses build because the Mutaters can make a real mess if they get a hold of them. Also, because there isn't a ton of extra space around what I like to do when a mass of enemies builds up behind me is just switch the direction that I'm circling in and it makes it real easy to take them out. The other little trick I like to pull here is to do a mini-circle around one of the middle boundries when some enemies or Cell masses get stuck inside of there. Circle, circle, circle and focus on taking out the Generators as quickly as possible and you should be fine here. 2. Zootris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: Bronze: 300,000 Silver: 800,000 Gold: 3,500,000 Layout: This level has to much stuff to draw out, so just to know offhand that it's got A LOT of boundries to avoid. Recommended Drone: Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o There isn't much breathing room in this level, but there are plenty of enemies to push you around including Gravity Wells. As usual with tight levels bring in the Sweep to help attack around edges. With most I also recommend staying out of the middle, but so many enemies build up there that you probably won't have much of a choice but to get in there and clean those areas out. Almost all the enemies spawn somewhere in the middle, however you'll get some out of the corners and sides as well so be aware you don't let them spawn on top of you. Generators like to appear in the middle to so if you start getting a ton of enemies wave after wave you may want to take a look for one of those to take out. Not to far into the level you'll also start getting some crazy tight Meteor Showers. Literally with no space between the Meteors. Don't be afraid, because they don't last for long and you should be able to just to hang out by the side until they are done or completely avoid it because they don't normally take up the whole screen. Main strategy I like to go for is use the open area as alleys. The enemies have to filter themselves through them to get to you so use this to your advantage. Hang out looking down one of the openings firing shots into it and as the enemies make their way to it they'll just get blown up by their shots. If you hang out by one of the angled ones on the top or bottom then enemies will filter down both sides and you can essentially kill them twice as fast. If you get a little behind and they start getting to close just back off to one of the sides and take care of them or relocate to another side. If you brought Sweep with you you'll also be in luck because as enemies get close (even if they are behind a boundry) it'll take care of them. So, use all these boundries to your advantage and let the enemies filter in to where you want them to be. When you get Generators in the middle areas just get in there a little bit and take them out then retreat back to the safer zones. 3. Roctris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 55,000 Bronze: 800,000 Silver: 1,600,000 Gold: 4,000,000 Layout: __________ / \____ / \ | \ | __ \ | / \ | | \ \ | \ \__/ / \__ | \ __/ \________/ Recommended Drone: Defend Starting Lives: 1 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Alright, as 1 life level's always are, this 1 is hard for me. But here's what happens. The level starts off with Mayflys and then Meteor Showers come. You get an occasional Grunt, but for the most part that is all you really have to deal with. However, a little ways in you actually start getting Meteor Shower's from opposite sides at the same time. This is the point where it starts getting really tricky because you have to dodge both showers at the same time while avoiding the Teeny Tiny Mayflys. Defend is pretty much indisposable here because while you attack the Meteor showers on one side it will take care of the one on the other side. Just watch the Mayflys because their small size can make them a little harder to target than something like a Grunt or Wanderer. But really there aren't many tricks to this planet. 4. Lostetra o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 70,000 Bronze: 1,500,000 Silver: 4,500,000 Gold: 9,500,000 Layout: Big square with lots of funky boundries Recommended Drone: Defend or Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This levels got some crazy boundries in it, but really it's just a big square so treat it like one. This level feels so big due to all of the weird boundries that I always felt like I had plenty of space to move around and that the enemies were few and far between (minus the Generator spawns). So, I basically went with the method of circling around the outside edge and then whenever the middle got full or the outside got empty I went through one of the middle paths to take out those enemies. Often Generators will spawn on the sides, normally 2 at a time so be sure to get over there and either feed points off the enemies they spawn or take them out. These are probably the biggest pain on this planet due to the boundries because it's easy to get cornered and if you get cornered while the Generators are spawning you can't kill them and won't be able to get out. The other problem that occurs is that you get trapped by the Tiny Spinners from destroying Generators spawning Spinners. As long as your careful though and use the boundries to hide behind and keep enemies out of your direct path you shouldn't have much trouble taking care of this planet. 5. Surhex o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 97,500 Bronze: 300,000 Silver: 1,000,000 Gold: 3,000,000 Layout: __/\__ | | / \ \ / |__ __| \/ Recommended Drone: Defend or Sweep Starting Lives: 1 Initial Bombs: 0 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o This is a small stage Neutron filled single life voyage. As with many of the stages like this the most difficult part is getting enough Geoms to get upgraded to the 3 shot burst. I'm torn between whether I do better with the Defend or the Sweep to be honest because most of teh time when I die is prevented by the Sweep taking care of enemies that are to close. But my general strategy with the Nuetrons since they move fast, but turn slow is to position myself in the middle and then when they start coming for me do a little "c" shape (to one side or the other) and keep shooting towards where I was to kind of take them out in my sweep. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well. I'm really quite bad at this stage so that's about the best I have to tell you. It takes concetration and dilligence so just keep practicing and you should get it. 6. Maspente o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 107,500 Bronze: 8,000,000 Silver: 17,000,000 Gold: 22,500,000 Layout: _______ / \______ | \__ \ \ \__ | \__ | \ | \__________/ Recommended Drone: Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Another Asteroid level only this time it packs in quite a few Snakes and a handful of Repulsors along with the Asteroids. It's relatively small even compared to some of the other Asteroid levels, but the same rules apply. Keep the Asteroids shoved into the sides to keep them concentrated when they explode and spread your focus evenly over both sides so that one side doesn't fill up more than the other. Bring in the Attack drone so you can take everything out twice as fast and whenever extra enemies spawn take care of them then go back to the Asteroids. That's it in a nutshell, if you need more strategy than that look back to some of the earlier Asteroid levels because all the same rules apply. 7. Orbtris o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 155,000 Bronze: 1,000,000 Silver: 3,250,000 Gold: 7,000,000 Layout: Diamond with a Black Hole and some barricades Recommended Drone: Defend or Attack Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o Just like all the other Black Hole levels you've played, same rules apply. Fly against the pull of the hole so that you don't have enemies coming from your back side all the time. Bring in Defend for any enemies that try to sneak up from the back. You get a pretty vast array of enemies here: Grunts, Wanderers, Neutrons, and then the new one as far as Black Hole levels go is the Generator. There are Generators here, so if you are hanging out on one side of the level and you see waves of the same enemy coming periodically then there is probably a Generator on the other side. 8. Flihex o-| I-n-f-o |-o Cost: 200,000 Bronze: 1,500,000 Silver: 3,250,000 Gold: 7,250,000 Layout: Octagon with lots of flippers Recommended Drone: Sweep Starting Lives: 3 Initial Bombs: 3 o-| S-t-r-a-t-e-g-y |-o There's a little bit of everything in this level so just take it as it comes. There are flippers everywhere so you need to always be aware of what's around when moving, especially when trying to kill Repulsors and when the Snakes start coming out. There are a few Generators, but they don't spawn very often and are fairly easy to take care of. I recommend bringing in the Sweep Drone because it can attack through the flippers and any Drone that shoots is just going to have it's shots stopped by the flippers. So it's best to bring in something that can help you in tight situations. Literally though you'll get a taste of most any enemy here and it's really about keeping yourself somewhere that you can get away. If you get stuck you're going to have some trouble getting out. ________ __/ Lambda \________________________________________________________[#GLAMB] Cost: $40 - Connect to Wii game to unlock this galaxy Planets: 7 My DS doesn't seem to want to connect to my Wii, sooo I'll have this posted up as soon as I can get that worked out. o---------------------------------------------------------------o |/ \| | Versions | 0_______________________________________________________________0 \ [#VERSI] / o-----------------------------------------------------------o Most people put this at the beginning, but I figure that no one really cares to read each versions updates, so I put it down here near the bottom. If you're reading it, rock on. ~~~~ Version 1.0 __ January 14, 2008 ~~~~ : Finished off planets that I had left blank : Still haven't gotten connected to the Wii so that section will be blank for awhile more, but I'm calling this the offical version 1. ~~~~ Version 0.81 __ January 10, 2008 ~~~~ : Had some spacing issues for some reason, fixed em : Had "Droid" where it should have been "Drone", fixed : Revised Weaver Strategy : Revised thoughts on "Stay away from corners" : Snipe Drone info confirmed ~~~~ Version 0.8 __ January 9, 2008 ~~~~ : Up to Lambda Galaxy mostly finished (minus some single life levels) : Had some killer Mine Layer strategies sent in and added : Costs of most planets added : Tips and Tricks added ~~~~ Version 0.7 __ January 8, 2008 ~~~~ : Some more planets done in Galaxy "Eta" : Some basic info put up : Some extra enemy stats put up ** Progress has been halted for today because I am currently at 500,000,000 pts on planet Vireis in Eta and it's taking forever, but I must press on and find out if you can get over a billion points. I will report my findings as soon as I'm done. ** ~~~~ Version 0.6 __ January 7, 2008 ~~~~ : Up through galaxy "Eta" mostly completed ~~~~ Version 0.5 __ January 5, 2008 ~~~~ : Basic info and data for everything in the game. o---------------------------------------------------------------o |/ \| | About Me and this Guide | 0_______________________________________________________________0 \ [#ABOUT] / o-----------------------------------------------------------o First and foremost thanks to anyone reading this guide especially those of you who have wandered down to this section to read more about me. I love playing games and I also love making games. I haven't made any official games yet, but I'm working on it. I am a programmer and I love working with Microsoft's XNA, but I also love doing web programming. I am currently working on building up 2 websites, both hosted at http://www.awesomeghost.com. The main one you'll get sent to is my blog site, but there is a link to a game reviews site I am in the process of creating and hoping to build into a large sclae site some day. I don't have a lot of time to make guides being as I am going to school and also working on making games and websites. Guide writing is very time consuming and there are a number of people who write more in depth guides than I do and get them posted a lot quicker than I do so there's really no point in me trying most of the time. However, Galaxies didn't have a guide when I started this one (a full guide that is) so I decided to put some effort into one and post it up. It's a really fun game to play and I'm getting close to have Gold Medals on all planets so I felt qualified enough to write up some info about the game. Hopefully some of you reading this can contribute some great strategies to really mold this into a really awesome guide. I don't think I have the best strategies, but maybe I actually know more than I realize. If you'd like to give some feedback or send a contribution feel free to do so. You can contact me at: [email protected]. Just make sure you write something about Geometry Wars in the title of the email or I may delete it without even looking at it. I'm also hoping to turn this FAQ into an HTML guide to make it easier to navigate because there is a lot of straight data and it can get a little painful to go back and forth between the content and the table of contents all the time, but that's in the future, I'll add a link in here when I do so. For now, enjoy this guide, enjoy this game, check out my site and send me some awesome strategies to post in here. Thanks! o---------------------------------------------------------------o |/ \| | Credits | 0_______________________________________________________________0 \ [#CREDI] / o-----------------------------------------------------------o Thanks to everyone reading. Thanks to GameFaqs for hosting. Other sites I've given permission to host: + Cheat Code Central + Gamesradar + Cheatplanet + HonestGamers + Super Cheats Thanks to Kuju and Sierra for making Geometry Wars: Galaxies. Thanks to everyone who is sending me emails helping with contributions. Don't post this guide on your personal site; contact me if you want to do so. I'm all for helping out anyone looking for assistance with this game, so I'm open to having it hosted pretty much anywhere. But I want to know where it is, so just drop me an email asking for permission. This guide is copyright me, ahhsumx, it is my work, but you are free to use it for your own enjoyment. Guide started: January 5, 2008 Finished: January 14, 2008