About a year ago, I reviewed a game that I truly love, Nat Geo Challenge! Wildlife. Now I have National Geographic Challenge!, which is essentially a sequel. This means that I have a new game with all new questions and puzzles to be addicted to!

As in the previous game, the graphics are just beautiful. I sat there and watched the pictures scroll across the screen just because they are so pretty. For quite a number of the questions, you will be shown a video and then asked to answer questions about it. The videos are so gorgeous that you won't believe your eyes. The only characters are your avatars that are imported from Xbox Live. I like that my avatar is my player. It means that I do not have to customize a new character just for the game. You do get to select a token for your character. Personally, I like the Time Traveler and the Treasure Hunter ones, but there are plenty more like Mountaineer, Explorer, Mariner, and more.

The one thing that I find missing in National Geographic Challenge! is the music. There is not much in the way of background music. It feels a bit lacking. It would have been nice to have some background music during Puzzles since it is eerily quiet without any music at all. I do like the host's voice though. He is very smooth with just a hint of a trace of a British accent.

National Geographic Challenge! provides quite a number of ways for you to play. There are three different games for you to play: Quiz Mode, Explorer, and Puzzle Battle, and three different Puzzle Modes available: Jigsaws, Squares, and Sliders. The first place that I started was Quiz Mode as it is the one of the three games that can be played single player. The first thing you do is choose a region of the world to play in. The regions for all the games are: North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, Australia-Asia, and Mega Quiz (which covers all regions). After you choose a region, you select from either 40, 60, or 80 questions, then choose Easy or Hard, and finally the number of players from 1 to 4. The questions are divided into different rounds. In some rounds, there is no break between questions so be prepared! The quicker you answer, the more bonus points you will get on some rounds. Others you will have to bet the points you already have. If you answer correctly, you will get that many back but if you lose, you will lose those points. You can't really fail the game, but the better a score you get, the better a rank you will earn.

Explorer is for 2 to 4 players and they can play with each having a controller or all share a controller. The tokens that you select here will give you different abilities. Two players cannot choose the same token. Once the game starts, you will choose a starting territory. On your turn, you move spaces and answer questions to gain new territory. It takes 2 out of 3 correct to win the territory, so you best know your trivia! You can also steal another player's territories making this a bit like Risk with trivia added. There are also things like Wildcard territories which just pop up randomly and do things like warp you across the board or even swap your territory with another player's. They really add a level of mystery to the game.

The final game is Puzzle Battle. It is for 2 players. You are both competing for the same puzzle pieces to see who can get the most solved. If you get tired of trivia, there are plenty of Puzzles, Jigsaws, Squares, and Sliders for you to play. Select the type of puzzle you want, then select a region and then a puzzle. You'll have to complete some to unlock the rest. The puzzle pictures are really beautiful once you get them completed.

National Geographic Challenge! provides Easy and Hard difficulty levels. I did not find that a lot of the questions were hugely different. The main difference in Easy and Hard is that the wrong answers are a lot more obvious on Easy. Sometimes they are totally fictional words or places, so you can rule them out a lot easier! Since you can't really fail, then it's not a matter of completing the quiz but rather a matter of how high of a score you can get, at least when you're playing alone. When you're playing any of the multiplayer games, you are going to want to beat your friends. The challenge of the game is going to depend on either how smart your friends are or how good they are at strategy. Of course, no matter how good you are at strategy, if you can't answer the questions, you'll never be able to win. Even though this is technically a game for 4 players, you could easily make it a 4 team game and play with even more people.

The controls in National Geographic Challenge! are quite easy to use. You will be given four possible answers for each question. Simply press the button that corresponds to the answer you want to choose. The game will tell you how to do any other controls that you will need to know. I really like that you can pause the game by pressing (Start) at any time. Games that don't have that ability are very hard to find time to sit down and play straight through, but any time you need to take a break to get a glass of water or something, you are more than free to. All of the questions in National Geographic Challenge! are on a timer. When you start to run out of time, you will hear a heartbeat get louder and your controller will vibrate. The less time you have, the faster it vibrates. This can be helpful for letting you know to think faster, but it can also be nerve-wracking! When you are doing a puzzle, it is important to know that the puzzle pieces auto-rotate when you pick them up. If you want to get them all the right direction quickly, you can just pick them up and put them right down.

I really enjoy playing National Geographic Challenge!. I do miss that you don't have to unlock the next area on Quiz Mode like you did in the previous game because I really enjoyed seeing new places unlock on the map when I beat the previous one, but even without that sense of accomplishment, Quiz Mode is still fun. The multiplayer games are absolutely wonderful for playing with two players or even a large group. National Geographic Challenge! is the perfect family game for entertaining and learning something too. I highly recommend you all pick it up today!