Lumines

Game: Lumines (PSP) - By kea_

Lumines is wicked! Takes a while to get into but once you start learning how the blocks work together it can be really satisfying and technical. It's a puzzle game!

Made by the dude who made REZ, so yes, it does work together with the music. Very clever in the way in which it does this too, there's lots of stuff you hear which you don't catch onto until a new 'skin' is unlocked, for example the sound effect of rotating blocks left or right plays different samples of music, holding left or right (dash) plays different samples. It all builds up in that general direction and changes enough to keep you excited.

The actual game itself is addictive, slightly confusing at first but brilliant when you catch onto it. Ultimately, you get dealt blocks of four which are made up of two colours. You can rotate the block before you drop it to the floor. The idea is to match 4 blocks of the same colour together, then these will fuse and be cleared by an ongoing vertical white line. It becomes technical when you release you can 'chop' blocks in half by dropping them on corners of existing blocks; eventually like every other game you find yourself tottying up and getting high scores and super turbo combos. I don't think I've explained this very well, but it's one of those games you read about, play and then go "ohhh, right I get it!"

Seven out of Ten