[img]geometrywars_pc_1[/img]As part of the Xbox Live Arcade service, Bizzare Creations released Geometry Wars, a game which first turned up as part of PGR2 on the Xbox gaming system. Geometry Wars has fast become one of the most popular games on the service so it was a no brainer when Microsoft decided that Vista could benefit from the game under its new gaming service. While the change to PC hasn't really changed the game all that much, it has brought with it its own positives and negatives.

Geometry Wars is best described as a modern day asteroids with a faster pace of gameplay. You take control of a small ship in a defined area and have to blow up all the geometry pieces which the game throws towards you. As you do this, colourful explosions light up the battlefield and you get a mesmerising light show which can make it hard to concentrate on the game.

The comparisons to Asteroids are many. First you take control of a small ship with objects flying towards it. Secondly, it's possible to shoot in any direction and move the ship around and finally, sometimes the blocks will blow up into smaller blocks as you destroy them. .However to call it an asteroids clone is doing the game a disservice as the speed of the game is vastly increased and it is a lot more fun to play than the 80's classic.

After a while the game becomes insanely difficult with blocks everywhere, huge explosions blocking the view of incoming blocks and the blocks start to come in various shapes and sizes. There is a powerup that can be used to destroy all the blocks on the screen but you only have a limited amount.

The game also, as expected, natively supports the Xbox 360 controller and this is the configuration we used while playing. It feels just like the 360 game and really if you already have the 360 title, there is no reason to pick this one up. The fact it only runs on Vista is Microsoft marketing in motion as there doesn't really appear to be any reason why this is the case. It could be argued that this costs the price of Vista plus $7.95 USD but that would be a cynical comment, which we are going to say and back up.

Geometry Wars coming to PC was a no brainer, but being a Vista exclusive was an extremely dumb move. If Microsoft wanted to do this they should have released it for free for those with Vista Ultimate. It's a shame that those without 360's and Vista won't play this game as it is the most fun arcade release to hit the PC in years at an extremely cheap price.

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