Xbox Addict:

Lumines Live!

Tetsuya Mizuguchi knows how to get you hooked, and he's done it before. The former SEGA® designer has a knack for fusing music, rhythm, visual design, and accessible gameplay into combinations that have resulted in some of the most sought after, well-reviewed, and popular underground games to hit consoles. Mizuguchi's resume includes hits like Rez, the cult hit Space Channel 5 for Dreamcast, and Sega Rally Championship.

Like Russell Mulcahey of Highlander, Mizuguchi is an offbeat icon of game design, bringing some of the most striking and innovative ideas to your television since Donkey Kong, even if the general public hasn't always noticed.

The fast and furious action of Lumines Live!

Lumines™ Live! , however, stuck gold with a tetraesque (I've waited years for the opportunity to use that word) puzzler that fuses music and rhythm with multicolored block-dropping to create the most popular puzzle game since Tetris, and hey, we're talking sixteen years since Alexey Pazitnov's brainchild hooked the world.

Lumines Live! (note that exclamation point—it was earned) for Xbox Live® Arcade is the next evolution of the game that sold 1.3 million units in North America alone for the PSP. Lumines, Tetsuya Mizuguchi's baby, is a game of block stacking, no stranger to Tetris vets, where you play in a field of descending four-block formations that you have to mate to other block formations. You've done this before, to a degree.

Drop those square blocks of four bricks in such a way that they land with four identically-colored bricks in a square. Lock the blocks together and make 'em go away. Lumines is about clearing that screen of blocks before it fills up and you suffocate under a ton of a pixellated brickage.

Triple bonus score!

Sound easy? Sure, if you have all the time in the world. The tricky part is that every few seconds or so a time-bar sweeps across the screen, clearing those four-brick formations out of your way for points. That's the trick. If you're playing to Michael Flatley's whatever, and the tempo of the game is, oh, set to the beat of Barry Manilow, with that time bar sweeping your screen every two or three seconds, you've got nothing but time to delicately and strategically set up formations of blocks for maximum points.

But if you're playing to something DJ Tiesto is currently spinning in L.A., you've only got half- and quarter-seconds to spin those bricks and slam them down. See, Lumines isn't just something that you play around with while you spin tracks on your Xbox. Lumines, as is befitting a puzzle game brought to you by the creator of Rez, is entirely driven by the music.

Mizuguchi's cult hilt Rez was a shooter in which you flew through levels, blasting at geometric formations straight out of a Tempest hallucination, with the pace, tone, and soundtrack all determined by how you played. Lumines itself unfolds depending on how well you play, unlocking special 'skins'—textures for the blocks and pieces, and background music tracks—depending on your performance. As you progress through the game, faster-paced music tracks dictate an entirely different style of play from more measured, methodical background tracks.

Fast, intense, addictive.

Lumines was a superhit on the handheld PSP, and surprised critics by becoming the must-have title for the portable platform. Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Lumines for PSP and his Meteos for Nintendo DS were the two most popular launch titles for those two platforms in 2005, and Q Studios' translation of Lumines Live! for Xbox Live Arcade is taking this puzzler to the next level. Like the gameplay itself, several disparate and distinct elements have come together on Xbox Live Arcade to make for a unique gaming experience.

The core game, Lumines Live! is the heart of it: A high-def, multiplayer evolution of the smash hit, built for the next-generation, featuring Xbox Live multiplayer, 12 unlockable achievements, and enhanced music and graphics to knock you out on your widescreen 5.1 setup. What takes Lumines to the next level is the new customizations of the game. This is a puzzler that can go as far as you can take it, in any direction you want to go.

Lumines Live! will have downloadable content to extend the game into whatever forum you prefer to do battle in: Single player, multiplayer, even challenges against scripted missions, and more.

Downloadable expansions through Xbox Live Marketplace will include the Advance Pack, a 50 MB download of more than 20 new skins and tracks, and the ability to challenge the best Lumines players on the leaderboards. Other planned expansions include artist packs, featuring skins and tracks based around a particular performer, mission/puzzle packs, which will test the player in levels and scenarios demanding the most of their skills, and even an A.I. pack is forthcoming, featuring different computer opponents with unique gameplay styles to challenge.

Lumines Live! is an excellent example of the way this genre is evolving: A customizable experience that caters to how you want to play. Square off against players around the world, measure yourself against a cunning computer, and play in a visual kaleidoscope while grooving to the music of your favorite artists. Lumines has a lot to offer, but it'll demand all you have. Download it from Xbox Live Marketplace, give it your all, and then decide where you want to take it.

Article by Xbox Addict