Alexey Pajitnov. Without him, we’d be without the whole host of Tetris related games we have today. Although he’s gone on to create a whole host of new variants on his original 1985 hit ‘Tetris’, that hasn’t stopped others joining the throng of similar veined titles. Thanks to Russia, Alexey didn’t actually get any royalties for Tetris, which must’ve struck a nerve or too seeing how successful the series has become. However, catapulted on the back of such success, alongside Vladimir Pokhilko, he went to the States to set up his own company and help other game developers with their in-game puzzles. Oh and I wouldn’t read up too much about Pokhilko if I were you – it doesn’t end well.

On a brighter note, I’ve been having a blat at Lumines 2, yet another variant on the Tetris theme and a sequel to the already reviewed Lumines for PSP. I figured that being a puzzle game it would have that much coveted pickup-put-down feature that I love about hand-held titles. For the most part that seemed to be the case. I was amused at the tagline – “Dropping blocks has never been so much fun”. How little it takes to entertain the masses eh?

In short, the point of Lumines 2 is the same as it’s predecessor, but with new skins and streaming video backdrops, some of which from famous musical artists don’t you know? A sequence of multicoloured blocks fall from the top of the screen, and your aim is to stack them so you get blocks of 4 squares of the same colour (yes, that’s right I’m going to have as much fun as Matt explaining it!). The more blocks of the same colour you stack on each other, the more frequent this pattern can occur (i.e. a stack of 6 blocks, 2 on 2 on 2, actually has 2 sets of 4 in it). If you can’t follow any of that, just take a gander at the screenshots – you’ll get the idea.

The cubes that fall, are all made up of random patterns of 2 colours, which you have to try and use to make up your matching sets by not only rotating them, but using blocks already set in position. Thanks to that handy little fellow “gravity”, you can split up the falling blocks, by only placing half of the falling one on a block already in position, keeping one half stacked, and the other to slide down until it hits something…

I never thought it would be that tough to explain a game that uses falling blocks as its main feature. But, you know, it is. You get falling blocks, you stack them in uni-coloured blocks of 4 or more to eliminate them and add points to your score. Any better?

Right.

So, other than the ever-increasing speed of falling blocks, you also get a timeline that relentlessly moves backwards and forwards across the screen that will clear any of these blocks you’ve managed to create – even if you’ve done it as the timeline has just crossed your path, and only clears half of the block away.

This, combined with some pumping-if-not-repetitive tunes, is what Lumines 2 is all about; fast paced, simplistic puzzle action with a slight twist on the original Tetris theme. However, in essence it’s pretty much an original Lumines upgrade. The game offers various modes for you to try out, like trying to create shapes, eliminate them, or competing against the computer as examples. Most of which are bloody hard if you don’t read the tips & tricks sections I’ll tell you.

While the graphics add a depth that might be lacking in other such titles, it can detract from the core gameplay, and while there are quite a few levels for you to chug through, for the most part once you fail you’ll be starting all over again. In some respects this is not that different from Tetris; that it was all down to how long you could survive rather than a level-by-level basis. So, with that said, it still works.

I suppose that once you’ve done all that, you can always compete against your mate if you fancy, or simply continue to improve the way you make it through the game. While I would say that Lumines 2 lacks depth that some might expect from a more recent title, it makes up for it in gameplay – however frustrated you might get!