So I bought myself a Xbox 360. And the most interesting game I have played on it, is the downloadable game called Geometry Wars. (apart from the other 3 games I own, excluding Zuma & Bejeweled)

 

After playing it for a while, the next question came to mind:

 

What acid-tripping masochistic genius came up with this game??

 

As you can see from the screenshot, the screen is filled with brightly colored enemies tht all have their own characteristics and explode in a  fireworks display when shot. Some even take multiple shots to take down and emit even more fiery sparks. Now take into account that this game throws more enemies a you then the old school days of Gradius and R-type and you soon find yourself squinting to see where you are at exactly. Just awesome. It captures the simple gameplay of back in the day when all you had to do is evade and shoot everything that moves. And the storyline was always: You and your advanced spaceship are earth's last hope for survival. (which were 9 out of 10 games back then) Geometry Wars literally throws hundreds of enemies at you per second......mercilessly. It's one of those games that will get you cussing out loud.

 

1 stick moves, 1 stick fires and there is just 1 button to release the mandatory smartbomb. The thing I like is that it not only captures the easy to learn, hard to master gameplay (in this case near impossible) but also captures the social challenges we used to set up for each other back in the day. Because you would *get* the gameplay pretty quick, you would set up mini-challenges. Stuff like: try playing with 1 hand. (If Yasser reads this, remember when I kicked your ass 1 handed with Streetfighter 2? ) But since those challenges can't be checked electronically (for now) it has challenges like reaching 100.000 points without dying, or collecting 9 lives, or reach 10x multiplier. The spirit of yesteryear!

 

The leaderboards (high score rankins that are kept online) are the score challenges from the early days, though at this point I am glad to reach 200.000 points, while the top scorer ranks in at 1.0000.000+ Gives you a challenge to live up to and the realisation that it is possible. Back then all you had to do in a game is score as high as you can, so that soon became the main challenge. Nowadays, it's different, sometimes better, sometimes not, but such throwbacks to old fashioned gameplay, done well, are very refreshing.

 

My tips:

evade and shoot backward. only shoot forward to blast a hole to escape when surrounded

the green enemies are the most annoying, shoot in a circle-form to circumvent their evvading pattern

don't aim, spray. Choose a direction to shoot in and move to cover the area.

the name of the game is evasion, not shooting.

stay in the middle, gives you room to maneuver.

 

The Xbox 360 is pretty cool. Nice integration of I-net gaming in the form of xboxlive. I hate micro-transactions though, every damn digital content costs money, don't fall for the hype.  And when using internet multiplayer, pc or console, assholes are still a dime a dozen. But those 2 that are cool will probably stay on your friends list for a long time. Thank god for an ignore button.