Geometry Wars is now on Steam

I just bought it onthere for $2.50. Which is a complete bargain.

Works really well with my PS2 pad too.

Not a bad price, may use it as an excuse to get Garry's Mod10 since $2.50 alone is a bit much to get the CC out for.

And man did a lot of new titles appear on Steam, avoid the site for a month, come back, and see half of your recent purchased titles up there for digital distribution...
(albeit I prefer physical copies unless said physical copies don't exist)

[EDIT] Hmmm, Psyconaughts, PREY, and Dreamfall for $20 each, now I don't know about you guys, but that's not a half-bad price compared to what I saw them on store shelves.
(even though they are old titles by now)

Yah, I like tactile stuff as well (until digital devices can act as instant drop-in replacements for most, err, physical interaction...), but Steam is just a better deal than a physical store.

Genexi2: Psychonauts is amazing value at $20.

I originally bought a (legit) second-hand copy off ebay, as I couldn't find it in stores (I live in Australia).
Played through it and loved every minute.

The thing was though, that I hadn't contributed to Double Fine (the developers) by getting my copy like that.
When it came out on Steam I snapped it up, and played through it again.

..I am sorry for my question since its a bit out of topic, but how price for game is usually created?? By publisher?? Or does developer has any influence on to price of the game??

I'm all about this ... I love Geometry Wars and have been anxiously awaiting the PC version so I can play it on my laptop anytime. I hope it lives up to the 360 original.

Totally worth the $2.50 ... heck I'd have paid $20 for it. At $2.50 it's like a gift from the heavens ;)

My take on the whole thing though is that this will be nice to practice while I'm away from the 360. It doesn't run as smooth for obvious reasons (especially at native resolutions) and it doesn't have online leaderboards. I think it might be a bit easier than the 360 version but it's hard to tell. Overall though, it's close enough. That just made my night!

Two questions:

a) How does Geometry Wars play different to Gridwars?
b) If you buy a title on steam how exactly is the copy protection done? Do i get a key or will i always need that steam activates the game via an online connection first?

a) Geometry Wars is a perfectly balanced title. Without the online score component it's hard to appreciate it fully, however Gridwars pales in comparision. Geometry Wars has real depth wheras Gridwars is merely a facade. Not all people will fully appreciate the perfection of the gameplay but I do and when I played Gridwars it only made me appreciate Geometry Wars that much more.

b) As far as I can tell at the moment you need to be online to play, but I'm going to look into that because I'd really like to play this game even when I'm not near Wi-Fi.

Ok, there is an offline mode. You have to start steam without the net connection on and it will give you the option. So long as the game is 100% ready to go you can play it without being online.

Okay thanks!

Never noticed that Bullet Candy is sold on steam too.

It'd be nice to see a completely indie section on steam.

I've just watched some Geometry Wars videos and the gameplay of those looked more limited than Gridwars due to that all the videos showed a strategy that you move in a circle whilst shooting. In Gridwars i move different to that. Obviously you can't judge it just by this but this aspect looked more boring in Geometry Wars than in Gridwars to me.

Another vote for Grid Wars over Geometry Wars from Stu Campbell:

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/grid/wars.htm

You can move however you want in Geometry Wars and you need to master dodging but you also always need to stay on the move and due the the borders at some point you have to turn, hence the circular movement.

I read that review of Grid Wars (I don't think I played the 2nd one) but all the same strategy for farming etc... exist in GW:RE. I don't care for the first Geometry Wars which was packed into PGR, the sequel is the perfectly balanced title.

To each their own of course, what you played first will probably steer your opinion.

Ok, just purchased me it, and all I gotta say is, this game is freaking intense.......

Only previous experience I've had with the game was via Wiebo's nicely done clone of the game, so I wasn't expecting the real-deal to be much crazier than his attempt at it.
(not a knock against Wiebo or anything)

Jeremy, aside from the leaderboard, does the 360 version boast anything else? My bro came home with a 360 Elite recently and the first thing that came to mind for me was to get GW:RE, but then came the fact we had no LAN cable long enough to reach it (and screw paying $129 for the 360 wireless adapter, my router/PCI wireless cards as a pack was cheaper than that.

Regardless, that really is a steal at $2.50.


Just need to find me the Windows edition of the 360 controller ('course I could just purchase the wired ones intended for the 360 for $5 cheaper, but bleh), this PS2-mockpad's right analog starting to lose it's sensitivity due to years of abuse.

[EDIT] Holy crap @ the chaos with 4 gravity wells orbiting each other.

Aside from the leaderboards and the achievements (which really do add a lot) there's not much difference, aside from the fact that the 360 version is potentially a lot faster and sharper if you've got a modest PC. I have to run the game at 640 X 480 for it to run even close to as fast as the 360 in 1080i and even then it still seems to be a few frames behind, but it's close enough.

For the controller, just get the 360 wired version for $40, not the one that's $5 more but comes with a disk. As soon as you plug it in Windows Update will install the drivers. Additionally, now you can use the wireless controllers with PC's but you have to purchase a $20 wireless adapter, which is like a wireless mouse receiver.

The game itself though is pretty much the same, just minor differences. The competition online is part of the reason I like the 360 version more ... but it's great to have it on the PC too for practice. I'll just be peeved if I get a higher score on my PC version :( I'm also very surprised that they didn't try to include the achievements in some way ... the Pacifist achievement (don't shoot for 1 minute) is constantly fun ;)

Probably wasn't worth the effort for them to integrate the game into that "Games for Windows" thinger that has the Live! mocked-up dashboard that allows you to log-on to your account and what not, which is Vista only iirc.
(especially at the price they're charging)

Running a medium rig or something there btw? I get a full 75fps (sync-rate of monitor) @ 1280x1024 with AA on here. Smooth as butter, and looks fantastic in the process.

Didn't know about the wireless receiver, shall look into that, as it'd save me having to buy another 360 controller.

[EDIT] Huh, looks like this wasn't the first PC release of Geometry Wars:RE, apparently there was a Vista edition released on MSN (for $8) three months ago, but it had unstable frame-rate issues, and was Vista-only.

Hmm... interesting, I didn't know about the other version. If it had leaderboards it might be worth it.

I'm running the game on my laptop which has an X600 chip. I can run the game at 1280 X 760 (the native resolution) but it's not as fast as it is on the 360. It's playable but much slower. 640 X 480 is the only way I can play at the same pace as the 360 game.

GW:RE does hammer the graphics system quite a bit. If you only have mid-range hardware, you won't get full speed.

I thought it would be CPU intensive as well, what with the 360 being a fairly powerful machine, but my PC handles it beautifully. Although, it refuses to enable AA. No biggie though.