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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."
It looks like a cross between asteroids and a winamp visualization.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
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?
Any chance of this becoming available on the PC? Even as a (shudder) flash-based web game?
No offense, but this is news? Go ahead, mod me troll, but it will just prove my point even further that this site has lost a lot of it's credibility when it comes to reporting worthwhile news.
The news is that an innovative game was made in an era when people bitch about not having any innovative games to play. The highscore isn't the story.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
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.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Charging you for the right to pay money to download small, overpriced games, sounds and backrounds.
Obviously there is a ton of money in this, but this is just the first step in seeing this crap happen to video games on a widespread. Microsoft does it, then sony sees it works, and they do it, then Nintendo says what the hell and they go for it...
Finally, its acceptable for all console games, computer games to charge extra for things that used to be unlocked through persistance. Now, the guy whos winning isnt because he earned that super car you've always wanted to putz around in, its because he bought it. The guy whoopin your ass with his +5 of Infinate Chucknori saved up for it.
Video games take another momentus step down in quality, UP in profits. I wont be a part of it.
Maybe I'm a little off the mark, but how can the first post to an article be redundant!?!?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
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.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )