Day 10 - Why My Official Score on Geometry Wars is So Poor.

 

Chocolate Of The Day:	Image of the day:	Sound(s) of the day:
it's a chocolate bunny :	it's a vectrex : the vectrex was a console with a built in vector screen. A vector screen is unique in that it updates by drawing plotted lines on its screen, unlike a TV image that stores a colour value for every pixel on the screen, a vector image comprises of line plotting values. Instead of drawing the whole screen each time an adjustment is made to the image, a vector screen simply draws or removes the required lines. A byproduct of vector screens is that they glow, I am guessing this is because they only have a single colour of on/off lights on their screen, these lights are simply on or off, unlike a TV that can adjust the brightness of each of its three colours per pixel. Because of the additional simplicity the vector screen offered a denser array of pixels making the lines appear smooth (like HD). The strong contrast against black and the brightness of the image makes each line glow, radiating in to the black areas around it. When I saw a Tempest or Asteroids machine for the first time I was instantly struck by the image's clarity and beauty, playing these games on an emulator is only a pale shadow of seeing them in their original form. Geometry Wars an Xbox live arcade title, has done a pretty good approximation of this effect. The GFX are made up of lines, each of which has a glow level assigned to it. The awesome thing about geometry wars is that it isn't restricted to a single colour, so playing the game with the lights out is like watching a firework show from the future. Ignoring its terrible soundtrack, Geometry Wars is possibly the most beautiful game I have ever played	Why My Official Score on Geometry Wars is so Low 1:00 So I love geometry wars, we even have a song about, oh make that two. I was playing the thing when I finally started to pull in a decent score, two of my high score holding friends were round at the time, so they came in to watch. My precious best score was only 800K or something, as I played on the achievement noise rung out announcing to the world that I had passed the 1million mark. Now sweating ad gibbering like a clown on smack things started to get serious, by the time my last ship went down I had scored a staggering 1.2 million, which at the time would have placed me pretty high on the scoreboard. "submitting score to xbox live...." the message seemed to hang on the screen forever, then eventually without warning "Rockzilla - Disconnected from Xbox Live" - My fucking internet connection went down before my score registered. Since then I have really only dipped in to Geometry Wars as I can't imagine getting that score again. sadly in the scheme of things, that score is pretty fucking pathetic anyway. The two accomplices can corroborate my score, my achievement details show I have broken 1million, but that's as far as it goes. This is something that makes me want to cry everyday. The song doesnt really explain any of this, hell the songs title is longer than the lyrics, but they might make sence now you know the tale - "it's another go another chance, a chance for me to redeem, mother fucker I aint tellin' no lie, 'cause things aint what they seem"