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PopCap can’t lose. Stuff like Feeding Frenzy shouldn’t even be remotely successful. The concept on paper, eating smaller fish to become a bigger fish, doesn’t even sound enjoyable or interesting. Yet, here we are with a sequel to the original, this time loaded with more content and multi-player.

Like all of PopCap’s games, this ones aims for successful simplicity. It works. Easy to grasp controls make it quick and painless to pick this one and start munching down fish. There’s no need to hit buttons to gobble prey down. It’s automatic. New gameplay mechanics and power-ups are introduced slowly, ensuring everyone can grasp the variety of objects that appear on screen.

Besides the redone visuals (which still feature rather static fish limited in animation), there’s plenty of new stuff crammed into this downloadable title. Some stages allow the player to jump out of the water to catch insects and power-ups, and there’s even a minor trick system to earn extra points. A story tries to make sense of the proceedings, though it’s hard to get involved when you’re dealing with fish regardless of how well it’s done.

Multi-player modes include a new co-op story (on two different difficulties), though sadly, this isn’t online. The same goes for the party modes, destined for greatness if they were online. Sure, getting four friends together is a better experience, but that’s not always possible and Feeding Frenzy 2 will rob some gamers of its full potential.

A few quirks of the original haven’t been taken care however. The score and various indicators block a significant portion of the screen, obscuring fish. There’s little reason for the screen to scroll in all directions, and zooming it out would have a solved countless moments of frustration. This is a single screen title stuck in a game that allows too much movement.

Finally, your fish can be tough to handle. Controls feel slightly sluggish in an attempt to make it feel like you’re in the water (duh), but only serve to cause errors that are not the players fault. Also, movement is faster this time out, creating problems for a certain speed-up power-up that only makes things worse.

While in the end, Feeding Frenzy 2 doesn’t reinvent or radically alter what the first game brought us, the minor changes and improvements make this a worth $10 investment for those that spent more time in the original than they’d care to admit. The lack of online play is a heavy downer though.