Is he still prattling on about Geometry Wars?

Yes. Yes I am.

This is just a fantastic game. Although I scored it an 8.5 in my review, I'm starting to think that was too low. Sometimes the desire to seem like a hardass can overtake my better judgment. (Full review should be online in the next day or so.)

I wasn't prepared for the impact well-integrated leaderboards can have on a game like this. The first Geometry Wars Retro Evolved had them, sure, but you had to seek them out. And even then, having just one game mode reduced your chances of topping people. One of the great things about having six game modes is that you can have six different high score lists. When you hit a ceiling in one game, you can try something new.

The constantly shifting scores are tough to take. All the scores are constantly increasing, but it seems like the rankings never change very much. I had a breakthrough in Pacifism this weekend, scoring 100 million in one game. That was good for second on my friends list, behind a guy with 106 million. Shortly thereafter, I blew past him and notched 124 million -- and tops on my leaderboards.

I think I pissed him off.

The next day, I logged on to find that he'd scored about 185 million. My overall ranking had slid by a few hundred spots in that brief span, as well. It feels like I'm walking up the down escalator.

Yesterday was futile. I didn't come within spitting distance of 9 figures all day. For hours, I played and played and always that screen name and those 185 million points regarded my efforts dispassionately from the upper right-hand corner of the screen. I pondered deleting the first-place player from my friends list. Even I'm not that dishonorable.

I am, however, thinking of installing the Geometry Wars hardware mod that Tom Chick recommends.