Gaming Weekend: Mathematical Destruction Edition
My 360Voice bot-blog has been griping at me for weeks as I’ve left the 360 unattended in favor of Etrian Odyssey and Blood Bowl pursuits. I was already thinking, “Maybe I should log on this weekend and just see if anything interesting is going on.” When I gathered a couple of new names from a forum I frequent to add to my Friends List, it was a done deal already so the announcement of Geometry Wars 2 being released can’t really be blamed in full.
What I can blame GeoWars2 for is my lack of sleep through the weekend and an onset of OCD-like symptoms that have me twitching and scheming to get a few more minutes in on various game modes like Pacifism and King.
Bizarre has done some interesting things with the Geometry Wars brand/franchise since the Retro Evolved game for XBLA became an early contender for best of show on the platform at launch. Some might persuasively argue that until the release of Oblivion and Dead Rising, it was the best next generation game period. I’m not saying I’m one of those people making that argument, I’m just saying they might have a case. Evolved was a sublime example of the kind of game console gamers wanted on their living room consoles. It was simple, harkening the old Atari 2600 era, but with a fresh feeling aesthetic and a rudimentray use of the Xbox Live platform features (the scoreboards I mean) that lent validity to the whole endeavour. The ribbon that tied the whole thing into a package suitable for delivery was the game’s in-session difficulty curve and obfuscated inner workings.
Obviously some of the “rules” of Retro Evolved are knowable: Multipliers occur at geometric sequence points starting at 25 with a ratio of 2, weapon changes occur every 10,000 points, extra lives are awarded at 75,000 point intervals and extra bombs at 100,000. But what is only surmized or perhaps supposed is the other less tangible elements: Some games it seems the waves that spawn from the board corners are heavily favored to one enemy type or another. Sometimes gravity wells (those hated foes that draw in other enemies until they nova into rapidly-moving clusters) appear within the first 10,000 points, other times they don’t appear until well past the first extra life. The explanations for these discrepancies are largely superstitious, but the fact that they are observable but not capable of being realistically charted makes them exciting, an element of randomness.
Add to that the fact that wepon changes cycle through only two options once you advance beyond the basic shot so you may stick with a favored cannon for minutes on end while other times you may find yourself flipping rapidly as probability allows and your score multiplier increases the milestone rate. Since some enemeies are subjectively easier to hit with one weapon or another, the game seems to intentionally introduce a certain arbitrary chaos into each session such that you want to keep trying “just one more time” to find that perfect storm of chance and performance that equates to a high score mark.
But since then the development team have opted for a more well-defined experience. I first heard about the “Geoms” concept when reading reviews of the Wii and DS exclusive Geometry Wars Galaxies, where each destroyed foe drops a temporary pickup that can be collected to various ends. In Retro Evolved 2, the Geoms are now the score multipliers and their ubiquity allows the scores to reach new stratospheres for good players, especially since the multipliers don’t reset with each life the way they did in the original Retro Evolved. Likewise, the sequel has five new game modes in addition to the basic Evolved game which are all enjoyable although a couple like King and Pacifism are clear favorites. But curiously those modes are those that are furthest removed from the predecessor’s gameplay: They drastically alter the rules of the game and, in Pacifism, almost create an entirely new mechanic.
I played Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved on 76 different days. I don’t have any measurable or accurate statistic to indicate how many hours went into each daily session; some were lengthy stretches others were quick one-or-two game stints. But it is listed as my most-played Xbox 360 game ahead of Oblivion; while Oblivion may have it beat in hours (something like 200 total hours went into that epic) I wager that given the additional 24 days I fired up GeoWars, it’s probably in remarkably close contention especially when you think that a standard game of GeoWars takes under five minutes beginning to end. I don’t know that this sequel has what it takes to match that level of interest perhaps because they’ve made such efforts to clarify what a game of GeoWars is. I don’t mind their efforts, but perhaps I prefer to project my own perspectives into that abstracted space, and lacking some of that ability, it becomes just another game.
The List
- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 – Most of my time with this game was spent with a purpose. That’s kind of unusual for a GeoWars game, but as I alluded to above, the game has a different feel to begin with. It’s always trying to give you a goal. First it was unlocking all the game modes. I don’t know if it’s merciful or disappointing that they’ve chosen to be generous with their progression speed; you can obtain access to the full game in under an hour. After that I was trying to bump the other guy on my Friend’s List who had the game from the top spot for each mode. I was 66% successful. Finally I was trying to get some achievements and I think I wrapped up most of the easier ones. Others, like Wax Off and Treaty will take a little more effort. I like the game, don’t let me distract from that fundamental truth. As far as a complete package, I think this sequel is more of a whole game than the original. But it’s also twice as expensive and nothing that it offers achieves that zen of familairity meets originality from the predecessor which means it may be a better game, but I hesitate to call it an improved experience just yet.
- Blood Bowl – I played a match against Dave on Wednesday. When last I played him, during the trial league we played through the end of June and first part of July, we drew a tie in Orc vs. Undead. Against the humans he trounced me soundly and left the team basically unplayable what with all the injuries and deaths. So I was apprehensive going into this match. Fortunately it seems that at least some of my recent strategy evaluations have improved my coaching skills somewhat; I was finally able to secure a full-fledged victory.
Granted, I may have used a couple of my skills incorrectly (Piling On requires the skill user to be placed prone which I forgot to do), but I think that by and large I can’t point to anything I did wrong nor anything I did especially right, I just didn’t make dumb, exploitable mistakes for once. I guess it made all the difference. One thing I did notice is that I won the coin toss at the beginning of the game which allowed me to receive first. I almost botched my chance to take a first half lead but I managed to pull it out in Turn 8 with some sports-movie heroics; either way it seemed that controlling the ball for most of the opening drive was a great way to put Dave back on his heels. - Etrian Odyssey II – I’m still slogging my way through the 2nd Strata; my two-party system was a bit of a bust since I end up wanting to keep certain characters on board at all times. I’m finding the Beast class to be superior in direct damage at an earlier stage than the Ronin which is kind of a bummer since I’ve had the Ronin as a key party member since the outset. But the Beast also fills in for the Troubadour in terms of FOE manipulation, if only the XP-boosting passive skill from the Troubadour had some sort of analog elsewhere. I’m finding the Alchemist to be a curious stumper. He has incredible potential but in most random encounters he’s largely useless because I don’t want to bother boosting his STR or giving him powerful melee weapons. Yet his elemental damage is occasionally necessary for certain resistant or high defensive enemies so I tend to only need him around on occasion. That seems like a poor excuse for using a precious spot on my 5-man adventuring team.
Hobby Corner
Spent more time working on the female elves over the weekend, getting a few coats of skin highlights and some base color on the larger areas of the uniforms. I’m struggling a little because my basic technique is to paint lighter colors first so I don’t have to multi-coat them over a dark basecoat. But when it gets down to putting the edges on the dark color, I have to be careful not to bleed over the skin tones. This means I need a fine paint brush and a steady hand. I burn through brushes like mad because as soon as they get a little used they no longer hold their tip as well and they become useless for what I’m trying to do. At $4 a pop that’s not very economical. I’ve already committed on these figs but I think I may go for a whole different approach on my next set of models. Not only is this method costly and furstrating, it’s excruciatingly slow as well. With less than three weeks to go before I want to have these done, I don’t need a plodding technique on top of my already crazy perfectionism.
Parting Shot
I received a disc containing a 10-day trial for World of Warcraft. In the mail, AOL-style. I appreciate that the game is so incredibly popular and Blizzard wants to do whatever they can to attract people who might not yet be hooked on playing the game to give it a shot. But I have to wonder if this sort of marketing is really effective. I’ve occasionally considered giving WoW a shot but I know that one of two outcomes are likely: I’d become obsessed with it and get myself into trouble for spending too much time with a game or I wouldn’t care for it and end up incurring monthly fees on a game I don’t play.
Given this overt attempt to appeal to a greater base however, I’m unlikely to ever try the game at all now. AOL disc spam used to make me insane, even if WoW is the best game ever and the thing I’ve needed to make my life complete, their co-oping of this onerous tactic has lowered their standing in my mind to the point where I can’t in good conscious even support a publisher who behaves this way. I can only assume they got my address because I subscribe to some game magazine or in some way identified myself as a gamer. That being the case, I can’t imagine a gamer being unaware of WoW to the point where they’d see a disc in the mail of all places and say, “What’s this? Maybe I should check it out.” If I’m a gamer and I haven’t already tried WoW I don’t think there’s any way a disc in hand is going to be the sudden burst of convenience that pushes me over the edge. The fact that Blzzard thinks otherwise is enough to convince me in the exact opposite direction.