Official Website

Platform: PlayStation 2

Genre: Puzzle

Number of Players: 1 - 2

One of the new millenniums most addictive puzzle games is back yet again. As PSP owners can already tell you, Lumines is probably one of the most addictive games on the system. It’s the type of things that can make fights break out over who gets to control the handheld system, and if one game wasn’t bad enough, Lumines II kept fans of the game quite busy. Lumines without a doubt is the Tetris of the new age and now that it has seen two PSP titles and an Xbox live entry, it’s time that the game makes the leap onto the PlayStation 2.

Lumines Plus is the latest installment of the game that is simple on gameplay but big on addiction. Not a great deal has changed really with the way that the game works and actually, let’s just say, not a thing has been adjusted making it easy to existing fans to jump right into the game. For those of you who may not have played the game however, the concept here is an easy one. You simply have a 2X2 square that falls from the top of the screen which is comprised of two colors, though at times you’ll get a square of a solid color. The squares can be placed in your play field and the goal is to match up solid colors also in a 2X2 square. You can of course add onto these to form a combo as well as match multiple squares across the screen. Unlike Tetris though, these won’t disappear immediately and there is a phrase meter which works its way across the screen, passing over your matched squares to cause anything above to drop down, maybe even resulting in another combo for when the meter passes by once again.

To add just a bit of confusion into the mix however, Lumines also assaults the senses. Each of the stages features a different trance or techno cut as the background music and behind the action, there are various images, some of which can be disorienting or match the square colors perfectly to further confuse you. The pulsing trance music though is what draws many into this game and keeps them mesmerized for hours on end.

Lumines Plus is ultimately just a port of the original Lumines from the PSP with not even a handful of changes. There are some good things about this however, such as the ability to create multiple characters, something that was missing from the Lumines II game and the subject of depression for my wife and I. With the original Lumines, it became a contest to see who could get the most scores on the board, and who could stay in the number one slot the longest, something that the second game just didn’t allow.

The more you play the more things that you unlock with this game as well, and at the end of the game you will find yourself unlocking new skins (or backgrounds) as well as character icons. The backgrounds can be used in the two-player mode either against the computer or a friend, or you can use them in the single skin mode which will give you the same background over and over again. Time attack mode as well as puzzle mode are also retained in the console version.

So, what’s really different in Lumines Plus? Honestly, not a heck of a lot. While all of the modes and stages are found here, the only real difference is the addition of a few new skins and songs, and that’s really all. In fact, it seems to me that this game was more of an after though. Online features are not utilized at all with this version of Lumines, something that could have very easily been done. The game also doesn’t feature any sort of link options with the previous PSP titles, though those games themselves lack this ability as well.

I have a few issues with the transition from portable to home console, and I suppose that this is the title that really shows that the PSP actually does have a bit more power in it than what the PS2 does. Changing between songs, you’ll find a bit of a lag. With the PSP version of Lumines, the songs fade while the next begins to play, but with Lumines Plus, there is a few seconds of silence while the system accesses the next track. It’s definitely noticeable and for someone who is a huge fan of the original portable versions of the game, it’s actually quite annoying. The skins and background look good, but honestly, the rest of the game really doesn’t look quite as good on the PS2 version, though it could simply be me trying to get used to seeing everything in a much larger scale than I have in the past, and having spent countless hours playing the other Lumines, it can be a bit disorienting at first. Now, my wife would claim there is a lag when trying to drop the blocks, and while we were using a fully charged SISAXIS controller, I found no issues like that at all. I attribute this simply to playing a bad game and trying to pin the blame elsewhere.

I really am a bit torn with Lumines Plus. I love the game, but this really feels more like a rushed effort to bring in more money than anything else. If you already own the game on the PSP, I honestly feel that unless you’re dying to have more skins and a bit of new music, you can overlook the PS2 version simply because it’s the same thing you’ve played and probably are still playing. The only difference here is that it’s just a larger image. If you don’t own a PSP though, this is a must have puzzle game, and is probably one of the most addictive ones out there, but it really doesn’t compare to its smaller brethren.

-mike-