Geometry Wars Reshapes The Past

Eurogamer has a piece looking at the sucess of Geometry Wars, despite its old-skool flavour. From the article: "Eyes around The Beehive widen and brows furrow in incredulity. I'm suddenly instructed to tell everyone at the table what I've just said to one half. I clear my throat. 'The worldwide high score for Geometry Wars is 12.8 million.' Nobody says anything. Everyone just thinks about it. 'Terrifying,' says someone, eventually. 'Mine's 2.1 million, which I originally thought was pretty good,' says Stephen Cakebread, creator of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved and its predecessor, 'but I've since been put to shame by all the people who've scored five times that!' Well, six times, but we're not counting. It's too painful."

Comments

Undeserved praise^H^H^H^Hworship?

[Gogo0]

I recognize geometry wars as a good game (I am a huge shmup [SHoot'eM-UP] fan, so I had to play it), but there are tons of other shmups that are just so much better.
Is it a "Oh wow, look what I just discovered on xbox live! This is the first shmup I've ever seen and its the greatest one there is!"-kind of thing, or what?

Could it be...

[rAiNsT0rm]

That people are actually looking for solid, easy to get into, quick to play, fun, games instead of expensive eye-candy and flash with no substance that offer complex controls, forced long investments of time, and no real reward? I daresay it does.

I find it so ironic that this powerhouse console is most played for a $5.00 remake of Asteroids on LSD. The public is speaking, actually shouting, what they want and game companies are finally starting to wake up to this and take notice. While UT2K47 and Quake 32 with new bot AI and super-duper physics and textures still interests a fair number of gamers, a much larger audience is out there clamoring for fun, quick, simple, challenging, and cheap games to waste some time and veg out with.

Mod on crack?

[RingDev]

Maybe I'm a little off the mark, but how can the first post to an article be redundant!?!?

-Rick

Online Gaming Changes Old School Gaming

[popo]

I think it has to be said that something big has happened here.

Its not that old-school games are back. Its that online gaming changes the
paradigm of "bragging rights" -- and that changes the motivation for playing
old school games.

Asteroids was never networked. High scores were something that kids whispered
to each other -- but never saw. With 360's LIVE arcade, we're looking at whole
new reasons to play: to rank, to rank nationally, and to have your score visible
to thousands of other players. Its what bragging rights *should* be about.

This isn't to say that the success of GW is purely linked to a national hi-score
list -- the game is also great looking. Its an old-school concept with a lot
of things old-school games couldn't do visually, and that in itself keeps it fresh.

But I wouldn't be surprised at all if we see a whole new cult of players trying
to top high-scores of a new generation of "twitch games" in a huge global
competition for bragging rights.