Might Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved revitalize the genre?

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 12:53 am

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved might well be the most popular game on the XBOX 360 atm. At any rate, many game journalists are calling it the killer app of the system for now. So far they've had over 200,000 trial downloads, and 70,000 purchases. Given the low production costs, this one would seem to be turning a handsome profit. Perhaps other publishers are taking note.
Does this make you at all optimistic about the possibility of a small resurgence for 2D shooters?

Post by **system11** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:17 am

It might help people see that you don't need a multi million pound movie style production to make a good game. The trouble is, people don't seem to be able to associate it with the games it's inspired by.

subcons · Post by **subcons** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:28 am

I'm just hoping it's a indication of what's to come on Xbox Live. It'll provide a place for small companies or even individuals to release their games. So just think of how great it could be to be buying $5 games that are original and rock that you probably wouldn't see with a thing like this new market place.

Yeah, and GW is awesome. Best $4 you can spend on 360.

jp · Post by jp » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:37 am

Apparently there are currently 50 or so XBLA titles lined up by Microsoft. After Geometry Wars "big boom", tons of companies started making divisions to work solely on XBLA games.

This time next year... I'm going to need a bigger hard drive.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:59 pm

I suspect that a few arcade shooters will make their way to XBLA, but I'm guessing that the majority of shmups that will eventually end up there are going to be doujin and euroshmup type stuff (and the doujin stuff might only be available in Japan anyway. I doubt we'll be seeing Naomi or Type-X stuff there anytime soon (those would probably get full retail releases if anything) but older titles (possibly up to NeoGeo and CPS2 era) seem possible.

Arcatech · Post by **Arcatech** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 8:30 am

This game is great and everything, but it gets boring after a while. I mean, once you pass a million points the game just gets to hard.

I usually just end up thinking what could have been. If Bizarre creations made a real shmup with more levels.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:01 am

I sincerely doubt it'll revitalize the shmup genre, considering it's not a shmup. It's a Robotron 2084 clone more than anything. While it may get some people to look into retro gaming, where simplicity was king, I think that's about the extent of it.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:37 am

The Coop wrote:I sincerely doubt it'll revitalize the shmup genre, considering it's not a shmup. It's a Robotron 2084 clone more than anything. While it may get some people to look into retro gaming, where simplicity was king, I think that's about the extent of it.

you move around on a gravity-irrelevant plane and shoot things is that not a shoot-them-up video game

magnum opus · Post by **magnum opus** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:24 am

Twiddle wrote:
The Coop wrote:I sincerely doubt it'll revitalize the shmup genre, considering it's not a shmup. It's a Robotron 2084 clone more than anything. While it may get some people to look into retro gaming, where simplicity was king, I think that's about the extent of it.
you move around on a gravity-irrelevant plane and shoot things is that not a shoot-them-up video game

not to start another heated "what is a __" debate but generally speaking we consider the whole independent moving/firing in a single screen thing to be enough to shunt it into borderline territoy (don't ask about zero gunner 2, we're still working on that) and more importantly the games tend to just be designed differently, different feel to them you know. it's like saying that just because a side scroller has a gun its a run 'n gun, contra style.

I started a thread a year or so ago calling them arena shooters (it was used intermittently before that) and its sort of stuck
they're sort of their own genre now.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:36 am

Twiddle wrote:you move around on a gravity-irrelevant plane and shoot things is that not a shoot-them-up video game

Are you telling me that games like Thunder Force IV, Raiden II and Last Resort are the same as Robotron 2084, Smash TV and Gauntlet?

Games like Robotron are a bit like Metal Slug, Contra and their ilk, in that they share some shmup qualities (namely, shoot anything that moves), but they're not generally thought off as shmups, or at least what might be considered "true" shmups.

Edit: MO- There was a flame war about what is or isn't a shmup?

Edit2: Added the quote from the person I was responding to.

magnum opus · Post by **magnum opus** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:39 am

The Coop wrote: Edit: MO- There was a flame war about what is or isn't a shmup?

not over arena shooters specifically, for some reason thats never bugged people

the big one happened over tempest/galaga
flame war? eh not quite that bad but it did get pretty heated.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 1:16 am

Vexorg wrote:I suspect that a few arcade shooters will make their way to XBLA, but I'm guessing that the majority of shmups that will eventually end up there are going to be doujin and euroshmup type stuff (and the doujin stuff might only be available in Japan anyway. I doubt we'll be seeing Naomi or Type-X stuff there anytime soon (those would probably get full retail releases if anything) but older titles (possibly up to NeoGeo and CPS2 era) seem possible.

Agreed, but it would really be nice to see some older arcade shmups from the '80s, like Flying Shark, for instance.

Don't tell me that XBL arcade game downloads are region-locked! If that's true, then that's totally ridiculous, considering that online, I can visit foreign websites!

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:05 am

Surely Xyanide shouldn't have difficulty finding a publisher anymore...

Especially if it were Xbox 360 backwards compatible on release, with a bit of marketing loads of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved fans would probably buy it.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:03 pm

magnum opus wrote:
Twiddle wrote:
The Coop wrote:I sincerely doubt it'll revitalize the shmup genre, considering it's not a shmup. It's a Robotron 2084 clone more than anything. While it may get some people to look into retro gaming, where simplicity was king, I think that's about the extent of it.
you move around on a gravity-irrelevant plane and shoot things is that not a shoot-them-up video game

not to start another heated "what is a __" debate but generally speaking we consider the whole independent moving/firing in a single screen thing to be enough to shunt it into borderline territoy (don't ask about zero gunner 2, we're still working on that) and more importantly the games tend to just be designed differently, different feel to them you know. it's like saying that just because a side scroller has a gun its a run 'n gun, contra style.

I started a thread a year or so ago calling them arena shooters (it was used intermittently before that) and its sort of stuck
they're sort of their own genre now.

is asteroids an arena shooter or what

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:32 pm

Thunder Force wrote:Surely Xyanide shouldn't have difficulty finding a publisher anymore...

Especially if it were Xbox 360 backwards compatible on release, with a bit of marketing loads of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved fans would probably buy it.

On Play Logic's website, you can now see European box art for the game, and they also state that they will be at E3 this year. You can also find some info on the PSP port.

They do have an office over here, in NYC, but that's no guarantee that Xyanide will even make it state-side; although as an XBOX owner, I certainly hope so!

There is also no mention on their website about a GBA port, so perhaps that's been canned.

I just want Play Logic to give us SOME kind of release date-the wait time on this game has been beyond ridiculous.

magnum opus · Post by **magnum opus** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 12:31 am

Twiddle wrote: is asteroids an arena shooter or what

i suppose mechanically yeah.
though i hate to include it just cause it plays fairly obviously different from robotron the archetype, inertia, rotating and screen wrapping.
though a lot of any genre distinction is just game design its a survival horror game isn't the same thing as a third person action game. sometimes you gotta say fuck game mechanics and go with how it actually plays.
don't read into this too much man.

jiji · Post by **jiji** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:27 am

I expect great things for the Robotron-clone genre.

Shmups, not so much.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:36 am

jiji wrote:I expect great things for the Robotron-clone genre.

Shmups, not so much.

Seriously though, I would love to see a robotron like arena shooter with the scoring depth of a shmup. Should play fine on any 2 player cab since there are two joysticks.

fraggore · Post by **fraggore** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 8:06 pm

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved is a class shmupp and very hard to score big on it . i can manage 1.4 million

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:44 am

Would be nice to see some older stuff, such as Toaplan titles etc available for DL. It's a beautifully simple idea with great potentional for cheap, easy and more importantly, LEGAL retro gaming. Whether or not it's fully realised remains to be seen.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:06 pm

Some interesting tidbits on XBLA here, the most interesting of which is the fact that Jeff Minter says he is working on an unannounced XBLA title (Unity?):

http://www.edge-online.co.uk/archives/2 ... e_live.php

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:15 am

Marc wrote:Would be nice to see some older stuff, such as Toaplan titles etc available for DL. It's a beautifully simple idea with great potentional for cheap, easy and more importantly, LEGAL retro gaming. Whether or not it's fully realised remains to be seen.

I completely agree Marc-I'd love to see some older shmups from Toaplan, and others, on XBLA. If the former employees of these companies don't want to put together compilations, then it would seem that XBLA would be a much cheaper way to go.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 9:49 am

dave4shmups wrote:
Marc wrote:Would be nice to see some older stuff, such as Toaplan titles etc available for DL. It's a beautifully simple idea with great potentional for cheap, easy and more importantly, LEGAL retro gaming. Whether or not it's fully realised remains to be seen.
I completely agree Marc-I'd love to see some older shmups from Toaplan, and others, on XBLA. If the former employees of these companies don't want to put together compilations, then it would seem that XBLA would be a much cheaper way to go.

Exactly, it's got to be cheaper and easier than putting out these mangy retro comps. Mind you, Taito at least made a good job of it.

kemical · Post by **kemical** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 4:41 am

Xbox live arcade needs to get away from the old classic's association and get more NON-CASUAL arcade games in there. More stuff like geometry wars.
If live arcade just mainly is used to promote/sell classics it's not going to get anywhere as fast as we'd hope.
All the developers I've talked to think xbox live arcade is a good thing, it will hopefully get away from the casual market type stuff since everyone instantly has access to an xbox controller, and it just opens you're market up to more of the gamer types, while puzzles are still cool, we need to get away from that.

just don't need tons of geometry wars clones...

Ideally it will allow for riskier/experimental concepts to be gotten out to lots of people, since publishers don't like big risks for retail stuff.

If MS can't quite do it, then maybe Nintendo or Sony can.

Molloy · Post by **Molloy** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 9:48 pm

I think we'll probably see a couple of new shmups on there eventually. I'd just love to see some of Kenta Sho's new stuff on there.

Maybe they'll put Senko No Ronde on there too. It's not the kind of game I could see selling in brick and mortar stores but if people got a chance to play a multiplayer demo they might comprehend the brilliantly original shooter mechanics a little better.