What perhaps may be one of the best puzzle games of all times makes its debut to the PS2. Lumines, which is rapidly becoming a saga of games with titles for the PSP (Lumines, Lumines II) and for the Xbox 360 (Lumines Live!), finally makes its way to the PS2. Lumines Plus is a game that can guarantee countless vegetative hours in front of the TV. Since it is essentially a direct port of a PSP game, it is surely not the type of game that will exploit the hardware capabilities of the PS2, but may still be worth having for puzzle gamers and the non-action-type gamers.

For all those who own the PSP title, this one may not be of much interest except for the fact that it is brought to the big screen, but even that may not be enough to offset the portability offered by the original PSP title. Besides adding new nine skins (which were already available for the Lumines II PSP title) there are no apparent new features, so it seems that the developers decided to make an almost exact port of the original. For all the people who don't own any of the Lumines titles, this is their opportunity to understand what all the hype has been about and become addicts to the popular puzzler.

Lumines Plus operates in a similar fashion to Tetris, Columns, and Dr. Mario. The game consists of 2x2 square blocks, each of which is comprised by small er single blocks that come in different orders and color sequences. These colored blocks must form a square(s) or a rectangle(s) of a single color in either horizontal or vertical order to eliminate them. Like Tetris, the sequences that are unmatched pile up and when the stack reaches the top of your container (game area) the game is over. Like most puzzle games, Lumines Plus also includes music, different scenarios, and bonuses for completing different tasks (such as leaving only one color sequence on the screen or eliminating all blocks). The uniqueness of Lumines is in the gameplay, as the re is a vertical scan line which is activated differently depending on the soundtrack and the skin (scenario). This scan line takes care of eliminating matched sequences of colors. This obviously makes for a very challenging and strategic game course as you must plan not only on matching the sequences but also on the time you must take. As for the multiplayer capabilities the game has an original Vs mode in which the vertical scan line also shrinks the screen against the losing player, making his container area smaller and more difficult to combine blocks.

Even taking in consideration that this game is just a simple puzzle port of a two-year old PSP title and that it isn't enhanced by the PS2's power, it may still a worthy game to have if the price tag is reasonable. It would be ridiculous to pay the same price for this game as for Final Fantasy XII. With that said, if the release price is around $30 or less, this can be your late February's Valentine since it releases on February 27.

Features: