After several days of grinding away at Blue Dragon, and the disappointment of reaching the ending and realizing that the story was not one worth playing again, I needed something to cheer me up.

Enter Geometry Wars 2. I am a big fan of the first Geometry Wars, despite my inability to break the million points barrier (my high score is 929795). So when Geo Wars 2 came out for Xbox Live Arcade on Wednesday, I downloaded the trial immediately to play it (seriously, at about 8:00 am when I first got up).  On my very first playthrough, I had over 2 million points, and spent the rest of the day grinning about how fun it was.

It took less than a day to convince the Mr to spend his well-earned Points on the game, and already I’m incredibly addicted to it. The six different game modes are each unique and very fun, the riciculously high score possibilities make the game quite satisfying, and the skill-based achievements make the game worth playing over and over.

I think my favorite part of this new version is the addition of geoms. These are little green gems dropped by enemies after they die, which increase the score multiplier when collected. No longer is the multiplier linked to the number of enemies killed since the last respawn. This means that the multiplier continues to grow, even over subsequent deaths, making huge scores possible (and by huge, I mean billions).

The multiplayer mode is also quite fun. I got my 4-year old to play some co-op with me this morning, and he really enjoyed it (but not as much as playing by himself and setting off bombs). Up to 4 people can play on one box at one time in versus, and 2 people can play co-op in any of the 6 game modes.

Geometry Wars 2 is exactly what I like in a game sequel. It is similar to the first in gameplay and fun, but with added perks and new skills to utilize to keep getting those high scores. Plus, the achievements are more action-based this time – perform a certain action (like flying against every inch of the walls in Pacifism mode to unlock Wax On) to unlock the ‘chieve.  Now I’m off to try and finish Sequence mode, which is the real challenge in this game.