Interscription

You got it, folks; I’m talking about Geometry Wars (or, as the Good Reverend DLB would say, “Math Attack”).  As I’m sure many of you have heard, Geometry Wars 2 is being released next week (July 30).  When I had first heard about it (I was sure it was in development, but the Microsoft E3 press briefing was the first I had heard about any concrete details about it) I was overjoyed!  As Khidr succinctly put it, GeoWars 1 was the killer app for the 360 at launch.  And then, the bad news started rolling in…

In no particular order, here are two terrible mistakes that they have made with GeoWars 2:

1. - No co-op over Live!!!!  Inexusable.  The only thing that was mentioned initially at E3 was that it would have four player co-op.  THAT sounded brilliant.  A few days later, it came out that the four player co-op (including a brilliant “one player shoots and the other player drives” mode) would be local co-op only.  Bizarre Creations’ reasoning had something to do with how technically complex the game would be due to lots of things going on at the same time. I guess the recent 64-player update to Frontlines: Fuel of War can’t hold a candle to some 2D shapes floating around over the interwebs?  While this wasn’t necessary for a launch game on the 360’s Xbox Live Arcade, it’s all but required in 2008.

2. - 800 MS Points.  $10 guys?  Another reason the first GeoWars worked so well was because of the $5 price point amidst some $10 “market tests” that were masquerading as real games.  It was an honest, well-produced budget title.  While the new one will have improved “visuals”, it’s still a 2D expansion of the original title.  There isn’t a plot, story, acting, cinematics, or much in the way of production values outside of every shader effect they can squeeze out of the 360’s GPU at a time applies to some basic 2D geometric shapes.  This type of title should never be $10, regardless of the largely useless local co-op.  (They MIGHT’VE gotten me if it had Live co-op, if only because I’m “deep in the heart of Texas”).

I hope the market votes with its dollars, and that they look at conversion rate and not total unit sales as a barometer for how successful this title will be (obviously they will sell more because of the incredible amount of 360s out there).

*sigh*  Is Castle Crashers here yet?