Bookworm Adventures 2

Those familiar with PopCap games may sensibly have high expectations. Peggle, a fantastic format for fun, is so much better because of the characters, wit and sound effects. It's taking a solid idea and infusing it with astonishing charm. However, PopCap has perhaps had a little trouble with sequels in the past. Peggle Nights really didn't feel like anything new at all, remarkably only adding a new character at the very end, and Bejeweled Twist seemed like a backward step from the perfect original.

Bookworm Adventure 2 breaks this habit beautifully. While the new ingredients above aren't breathtaking in the changes they make, the reason for buying a whole new Bookworm game (rather than simply replaying the original - the grids are random, it is in effect infinitely replayable) is to experience the abundance of joy that comes with it.

The humour is endlessly and effortlessly brilliant. Every new enemy (I estimate there are around 150 of them) has unique paper-doll animations, its own unique death animation, and a collection of hilarious lines to deliver. Meet the White Bone Spirit - a really quite menacing flying dragon skellington - and he greets you with, "Hello, I'll be your White Bone Spirit for this evening." An evil robot named Bezerkoid declares, "Biology is disgusting!" Encountering the moon (seriously, I bloody love this game), he sings, "When the Moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's AMORE!" Meanwhile, every character has their own description. The moon, in the early fairytale section, is described like this:

And it only gets sillier. Book 2 is perhaps a little too sensible in places, themed around Chinese literature and mythology, but Book 3's all-out insanity is a real pleasure.

Oh, another thing. Not only do they all have their own gags, and comedy descriptions, but each has his own unique collection of attacks. These boil down to the same thing - harm Lex, make him burn, lock tiles, etc. But each is given two or three of these with punning names. The sheer volume of these puns is mind-boggling. A favourite? You fight a walrus who can make Lex bleed with his, "Goo-goo-cut-you" attack. Come on - you may have thought I was an idiot with those previous examples, but that's gold dust.

Lots of other details the game doesn't boast make a difference. Spell an apposite word and you'll receive a bonus. I managed to get DINOSAUR while travelled back in time to the Jurassic era, and the game rewarded me accordingly. (Although when I spelt SEXIST for a Stepford Wife, sadly it failed to recognise my scathing satire.)

Phew, I managed to get through this without boasting about the long words I got. (Look at the screenshots! Admire me!) But that's the thing. This is a game that is more satisfying the more skilful you are. Stumble through with five-letter words and you're going to have a tough time staying alive. Throw out the odd 11 or 12-letter word and it will shout its amazement at you, and reward you with elaborate animations. (There's a moment involving dancing I'm itching to spoil, but I won't, but seriously, spell long words when you get there.)

The problems? Well, it's simply not hard enough by the end. I lost two battles the entire way through, and one was because I became trapped in a cycle of having 11 out of 16 tiles locked and being constantly stunned, not having any way out of it. The other because I didn't play well enough. But in around 150 fights, I'd hope to struggle more than breezing through 148 of them. It's always fun to get long words, and always amusing to read the nonsense on the screen, but I'd love it if it would just get tough.

However, this time there's a fabulous reason to play a second time - once completed the game becomes about gathering achievements. Spell five 10 letter words, spell five words beginning with the same letter in a row, and so on. (In fact, the Gold stage of that last one wants eight in a row - I'm not convinced that's possible). This gives fresh motivation to be better and better. There's also a couple of new mini-games, but frankly nothing can be better than the Word Master game where you have to guess the five-letter word in a sort of Mastermind (the game, not the TV show) style. I could spend the rest of my life playing that very happily. (Beat more than 39 in a row, I dares ya!)