If there is one game the PlayStation Portable was and still is worth getting for, it has to be Lumines. Being a puzzle game with innovative gameplay and beautiful presentation, Lumines quickly enjoyed substantial popularity amongst North American and European PSP owners, while also receiving prestigious review awards like GameSpot's 2005 PSP Game of the Year. It has been somewhat quiet around the game since then, but now puzzle fans can rejoice once more as Lumines will make its appearance on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade. Lumines is back with a vengeance as Lumines Live! Flan_Man has the preview.

Short introduction

When it comes down to basic gameplay, Lumines is a block-dropping game similar to the all time classic Tetris that puzzle fans know and love. In Lumines, blocks made of four smaller squares are dropped into the playing field periodically. The smaller squares will be one of two different colors. Your objective is to make pieces disappear by rotating the falling blocks and moving them around the playfield to form four matching colored squares into a block. A vertical timeline periodically sweeps across the playfield and removes such blocks. Line all of the blocks up properly and make good use of the timeline, as unmatched blocks pile up, and the game ends when the pile gets too tall.

Trippy club experience

One of Lumines’ main catch points are its trippy visuals combined with the club music. Lumines is played in different skins, with each skin changing the appearance of the playfield completely, as well as introducing a new song and sound effects. What makes the experience even more exciting is that you are partially in control of these visuals and sounds, because they react to you rotating and moving pieces, busting blocks and setting off combos. You’ll trigger effects, and the more squares you clear in rapid succession, the more the music will swell. Lumines is like the integration of puzzling and music making, with you being the composer behind it all.

New modes exclusive to Xbox Live Arcade

Classic Lumines already offered you several modes: single play, versus 2P, versus cpu and puzzle mode. In single play, you could pick the challenge mode, which would take you across all of the different skins as you progressed in the game. Alternatively, you could stick with your favorite unlocked skin in the single skin mode. There also was the time attack mode, which allowed you to clear as many blocks as possible in either 60, 180, 300 or 600 seconds. Puzzle mode offered a twist on the formula, with the objective here being to create pictures by forming the picture with one color while surrounding it with the opposite color.

Conclusion

Rare are the puzzle games since Tetris that are so ingeniously simple to start with, yet offer such an addictive gameplay that continuously ups the stakes and forces you to change strategies. The cherry on the pie would be the beautifully presented package.

This is Lumines at heart, and Lumines Live! expands on that in every way imaginable with snazzier visuals, more modes and plenty of extra downloadable content. Lumines Live! looks set to be the puzzle game to get on Xbox Live Arcade.
 

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