Every new portable console must launch with a new puzzle game and Lumines is the game doomed to be described as the PSP’s answer to Tetris. In fact, the game has very little in common with the Russian classic, despite looking awfully familiar.The idea is that squares, made up of four multi-coloured smaller blocks continually fall from the top of the screen. You have to create single colour rectangles out of these squares, at which point they disappear when a vertical line, called the "timeline", passes over them. Your game ends if any block hits the top of the screen.
Like all puzzle games describing the gameplay is infinitely less interesting than actually getting hands on. Also like most other puzzle games, Lumines doesn’t look very good in screenshots -- seeing it in motion is a different matter all together as the backgrounds swirl and pulse with your actions. The music is even more in tune with your actions, rising and falling depending on how well you’re doing.
With a number of different game modes, including a wireless multiplayer option, what looks to be the new console’s least arresting title is actually its most playable and likely to remain a favourite long after other launch titles have been discarded. -- Harrison Dent
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lumines
Lumines (PSP)