Review: Lumines II (bvg, PSP, 2006)

It's always the case that the most compulsively playable games are usually the simplest and most accessible. Lumines II is such a game, following in the footsteps of the puzzling greats, Columns, Bust-A-Move, Puyo Puyo and of course Tetris. Like all great puzzlers, Lumines II is deceptively straightforward. Simply combine 4x4 coloured blocks into sets of four or more to clear them from the grid. Easy. However, there's more to this simplistic premise than meets the eye and it's not long before you're racking up massive combos of screen-clearing explosions.

Consisting of several different game modes including challenge mode, time attack, puzzle and mission mode, you're never short of things to do. Challenge is a beat-the-high-score game where you unlock new tracks and skins as the blocks fall quicker and the action becomes increasingly frantic. When the music videos from the likes of The Black Eyed Peas, Beck and The Chemical Brothers kick in, the on-screen action becomes pretty hard to follow and can cause some rather nasty headaches as you try to focus on blocks whilst Will I Am jumps around in the background.

Lumines' additional modes offer some bite-size puzzles, tailor-made for quick play during a bus or train journey. Whether it's forming gradually more complicated shapes from blocks or clearing a certain configuration within a set of constraints, Lumines II constantly offers up a variety of fun and addictive challenges. Minutes quickly become hours as your eyes fuse to the screen, arrested by the riot of lights and colour. Expect some haunting, lucid block-filled dreams to invade sleep after extended Lumines II sessions; the game will etch its explosive pallette onto your retinas and won't go away. This sounds like a bad thing, but it's not. Lumines II is a transcendent puzzling experience, perfect for shutting yourself off from the rest of the world, or just the weirdoes on the number 44 bus home.

Lumines II is yet another essential game for the PSP, and serves as a reminder that perhaps it's time we started buying, playing and reviewing some crap games for a change.

Verdict: 9/10