Lumines

"Tetris for the 21st century, only better"

I must confess to being slightly disappointed with the PSP console. I bought a Japanese one about a month ago and was salivating at the prospect of it. A portable games system with PS2 quality graphics? Yes please. I can't remember the last time I was so excited about a console (except for when I discovered the wonders of a mod-chipped Xbox and got together a pile of emulators. At last, a way to keep all my old favourite games alive without the need to keep having to pull the old SNES out of the attic and fiddle around at the back of my TV with all those wires! Pure gaming heaven), but it was only after about 15 minutes of using the PSP that I realised that the system is perhaps not so great after all. While technically impressive and open to all kinds of upgrades and goodies in the near future, it's rather heavy and uncomfortable to hold, and your hands will get cramp after prolonged sessions.

However, the PSP currently has a good thing going for it. The good thing going for it is one of the best games I've ever seen.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lumines.

Lumines is a puzzle game, and it's an incredibly simple concept. However, it's horribly tricky to describe, so you'll have to bear with me here. Imagine you're playing Tetris for a minute. You've got a small playing area and different shapes made up of little cubes keep falling from the sky. Now imagine that instead of different shapes, you've just got one - a 2x2 square. Now imagine that each of the 4 quarters of that square have been coloured in, but only in one of two colours - let's say red and blue. You might have a square that's entirely blue or one that is half and half, or one that is three quarters red, or any possible combination of those colours and layouts. Now imagine that you've got to arrange these falling squares to form blocks of at least 4 cubes of any one colour. That's Lumines, that is.

Except it's not, because there's more to it than that. Lumines, being made by the same people who brought you Rez and Space Channel 5, places a lot of emphasis on music and lighting effects. Each 'skin' plays exactly the same, but is characterised by a gorgeous backdrop that pulses in time to the actually-pretty-cool techno dancey tunes that are played. When you've played through one level, the background spookily and skilfully shifts to a new image, the music segues into a new tune, and while nothing happens to your shapes, the colours of your blocks change to match your new surroundings. At no point, from starting the game to losing, does the action actually stop. There is a bar that sweeps from the left side of the screen to the right, eliminating any shapes you've completed. This means that once you've formed a shape that qualifies and can be removed, it won't actually go anywhere until the time bar touches it, meaning that if you're quick enough, you can add extra layers to it using the squares that fall in the meantime.

There are a couple of different 'modes' on offer. Challenge mode - the best single player option - starts you on the same skin each time and takes you through as many as you can play before you build your stack too high and you lose the game. You can choose to play individual rounds on your favourite skins. There's a 2 player mode, but because I don't know anyone else with a PSP yet, I don't know how much fun that is. There is a similar 'vs.' game which pits you against the computer, where the playing area is split vertically down the middle, and making good shapes and combos forces the split further towards your opponent, giving you more room to work with, and them less room.

As previously hinted at, Lumines is completely gorgeous to look at, and the sound is out of this world, especially if you use headphones. There are loads of detailed little touches which you may not even notice until you've been playing the game for ages – like the way the music actually changes depending on how well/badly you're doing. And the way that rotating your block or flinging it from one side of the screen to the other, or forcing it to land quicker than normal adds little extras to the music which you will think at first are just part of the normal track. And the way that the backgrounds actually move in time to your playing as well as the music. And the way that the timebar moves and works just like a timebar in a music creation program. It all adds up to such a deep, engrossing and atmospheric experience.

Criticisms? The puzzle mode (where the idea is to form shapes with your squares, rather than getting them to form blocks) isn't so much fun, but that's about it. Oh, and the fact that it enters your dreams like a restless ghost after you've been playing it for a few days.

I've honestly not been this excited about a videogame for ages. 2005 is only 2 months old at the moment, but we've already had some utter gems (including the charmingly inexplicable Project Rub and the supremely addictive Zookeeper on the Nintendo DS, and the new Oddworld game, to name just 3 examples). Lumines is better than all of them. And I would even say that (deep breath) it is worth buying a PSP for, even if you never buy another game for it ever again.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/14/05