Everyone's favorite geometry-based arcade shooter gets a major revamp.

Although the graphics have been given a significant tune-up (the game’s vibrant flashing neon colors are quite the sight to behold), the feel of the game is very much the same. The dual-stick move-and-shoot controls are still tight and responsive, and with one or two exceptions the game’s simple geometric-shape enemies are unchanged.

The game now sports six different gameplay modes. The original Evolved mode is present, as are a handful of different game types that radically change the way the game is played (my personal favorite is “King”, which is far easier to play than to explain in writing). These various modes are a blast, and provide great variety, but they mostly serve as a training ground for Deadline mode, the clear focus of the game.

Deadline is a mad dash to score as many points as you can in just three minutes. You are given unlimited lives, but each respawn takes up precious time you could be using to rack up points. Much like fellow XBLA game Pac-Man: Collector’s Edition did to Pac-Man, Deadline takes the Geometry Wars formula and turns it on its head, forcing you to play offensively rather than focus on survival. Multiplayer is available, both cooperative and competitive, for all of the game modes. Some work better than others - I personally found that competitive “King” mode is absolutely fantastic, while a lot of others fell flat. There is no online multiplayer over Xbox Live, but I don’t really think the style of multiplayer gameplay would have translated well to playing with strangers.

The most drastic change to the GW2 game formula from the first game are Geoms, little green diamonds that appear whenever you kill an enemy. Each Geom collected increases your score multiplier by one. Besides changing elementary game strategies (if you want to increase your score, you have to actively move towards enemies and collect their Geoms, rather than just them), Geoms make your score increase exponentially rather than linearly; this means that even if you only get a tiny bit better at the game, your score will be significantly larger, giving a great sense of personal achievement.

Bizarre Creations made one other tweak to Geometry Wars 2 that sounds insignificant but is in fact utterly game-changing. Like all other XBLA games, it grabs scores from all of your Xbox Live friends who own the game to assemble your personal leaderboard. While you are playing, however, it always displays the next highest score in the upper right-hand corner, giving you a personal goal. Once you beat that score, it simply shows the next highest score.

Unless you are better than all of your friends, the game makes sure that you always have a personal goal that is within reach. This single addition has made me spend more time in the past week with Geometry Wars 2 than I ever did with the original - I would spend hours beating a friend’s score that was just beyond my reach, only to have that score instantly be replaced by another higher score.

There is a lot to like with Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2. If you didn’t like the original Retro Evolved or if the idea of playing to beat a high score, there still isn’t that much for you in Geometry Wars 2. For fans of arcade-style gameplay, however, GW2 is a gigantic improvement over the original, and well worth the $10 it costs (800 Microsoft points).