Geometry Wars Evolved 2 hits Xbox Live Arcade. Bizarre Creations brings us the second installment if the stellar title that was so largely popular on the arcade and captured the hearts and souls of everyone. The first title set many standards and levels of enjoyment that one would not think could not be exceeded with a sequel. Well guess what folks. Not only is this iteration just as fun and amazing, but it raised the bar once again in Arcade titles and what you should get for your money.

The game has been released at the price point of 800 Microsoft Points. But this is one arcade title that I can honestly say is worth every penny. You'll enjoy 6 different modes of play, visually stunning graphics and and even cooperative play with up to 3 more friends. Sorry its local play only and not over Xbox Live. You get plenty of bang for your buck with Geo Wars 2.

So where do we start? Well lets start with the various gameplay modes. As I stated, you'll get 6 single player modes of play. The first thing you will notice when opening up the single player option is that only one game mode is unlocked. You'll have to put in some playing time to unlock all the other modes. No worries, this shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes. Once you have all your game modes unlocked you'll notice something very innovative. The game modes are separated into 6 quadrants on your screen, and within each quadrant you'll see the top 6 scores of your friends listed. No more searching leaderboard for that info. You'll know right then which game you need to play to get ahead of your buddies! Very cool feature.

The game modes include the following: Deadline, King, Evolved, Pacifism, Waves, and Sequence. The object of deadline is to score as many points as you can in 3 minutes. You'll have infinite lives to complete the task, but your score will obviously become larger the longer you stay alive and rack up multipliers. King is a style of King of the hill. You'll enter Blue circles where you can fire your weapon at incoming enemies. Once you have entered a zone it will slowly decay and you'll have to move to another zone. The catch is, when outside of a zone, you cannot shoot your weapon. So clear a path early. Evolved is the original game of Geo Wars in which you face off against waves of enemies that continually grow in numbers. Pacifism is a mode with no weapons. You'll fly around the screen passing through gates to destroy your enemies. When you pass through a gate, it will explode destroying nearby enemies.  Waves pits you against horizontal and vertical attack formations of enemies. You'll have to fire holes into the approaching line in order to survive. And finally Sequence consists of 20 levels that you must overcome. You get 30 seconds to clear each level of enemies.

An interesting concept added to the game as well is the addition of something called Geons. These Geons are small green dots that appear when you destroy enemies. Be sure to fly over these to pick them up in order to gain higher scores. Also the additions of gates allows you to build higher scores as well when you use them at times to destroy the most enemies you can.

The graphics are once again simply stunning. The particle effects are amazing to look at and the characters are quite vibrant in color. My only gripe would be that at times you can get lost in the particle effects and literally lose perspective of where your ship is located. This can at times have you turning into enemies when you thought you were moving away from them.