Geometry Wars - I suck!

[Americanidle]

Okay. I flew through Ninja Gaiden, God of War, and I once even beat my gamer friend 72-0 in Madden 95 back in the day so I figured I got mad gaming skills and can handle Geometry Wars. Well it didn't work that way and though I haven't played too much, I have yet to break 100,000 points.I am kinda guessing that a good strategy is to fire in the direction I am moving and move through the enemies that way, but my fingers do not cooperate. I may have to reassess my gaming skills.

[TheMissingLink]

I suck, too.  But I suck at a lot of games, so I expected this.

Those green buggers are the most annoying.

[bluntman72]

I havent been able to do much with geometry wars either

is there any specific strategy that works well to surive long enough to get a decent score, I have not hit the 100k mark either.

[happydog]

At first shooting in the direction you travel works just fine. But as you get more enemies on screen, you have to learn to clear an area in front of you, then shoot behind you at the large group that you have following you.

There are several videos out there that show how to survive once you get a crapload of enemies.

[depward]

Yeah I'm pretty bad at Geometry Wars as well.  I worked and worked at it and finally broke the 100k barrier.  But I don't get that far normally now anyway.

Tips!  Help us poor GW wannabes!

[disarm]

just playing the game a lot will make a big difference.  i started out with the demo and it took me a while to even last to the end of the 4-minute limit...and my scores were rarely over 100,000 for a while.  give it a little more time and you'll start to get a better feel for the game though.  once you get even a little better, your score will start to jump quickly...just surviving long enough to get a decent score multiplier makes a huge difference.  once you get a little farther in the game, there are so many enemies spawning that your score increases quickly and you're constantly gaining/losing lives.

as for specific tips, i'd recommend playing more and watching some clips of high scoring players.  you'll start to learn some of the different spawn patterns and how to eliminate them quickly.  you can fire and move away from shapes initially, but the screen quickly becomes crowded...your best bet is just to charge in guns blazing at that point.  like happydog said, shoot in front of you most of the time, but fire a few shots back toward what's following you when you get a chance.  if you run laps around the edge of the screen, the enemies tend to clump up behind you.  then it's just a matter of doing a little circle-strafe to take them all out.  it's easier said than done, but practice really does make a difference.

[Dimmona]

One other tip a lot of people sometimes miss - using your bombs will clear the screen, but you get *no* points for destroying those enemies.  The best approach is to get used to not using bombs at all initially, and then only use them when you know you're cornered/about to die and you have a high multiplier going.  If you have a low multiplier (say, < 5x) it's probably better to just let yourself die rather than waste a bomb....

[Dimmona]

Woohoo, after playing Oblivion for 4 straight hours last night I decided to sneak in a quick game of GW before bed since I hadn't played it all week - and I finally broke the million barrier I've been after!  Maybe the best tip is to  take a break from playing it a while.... or else play plenty of Oblivion beforehand