The TPS Report - Games, Beats 'n' Blogs

And in that single moment, the primary reason for owning a PSP vanished.

Yes, Microsoft have snatched up the prize accomplishment of Sony's slightly troubled handheld and chucked it up on the Live Arcade this week. Fair enough, there's still one or two other interesting bits and bobs out there in PSP land, but if that still ain't a big old "fuck you" from Bill and Pete, I don't know what is.

Screens have never done this game justice. You have to see - or more importantly hear it in action to understand

Released back at the PSP's launch, Lumines was essentially a next-gen Tetris of sorts. What at first appeared to be a simplistic puzzle game about blocks falling down, multiplied in brilliance due to 1) the sheer barminess of the music, 2) the gloriously vibrant visuals, and 3) the surprisingly revolutionary new screen wiping mechanic. You were tasked with arranging falling blocks into similarly coloured 4x4 batches you see, but they weren't actually removed until a variable speed windscreen wiper cleaned 'em away every five seconds or so.

Not only did this open up the ability to string together some stunning combos - as you laid down huge clumps of blocks as quickly as you could before The Wipe - but it also blessed the game with startling tension and pressure as the screen filled up, cleared blocks never quite disappearing as fast as you needed them too. It was, quite simply, a frickin' fun game. Ooh, it gives me wood just thinking about it.

As mentioned, a large part of that was due to its utterly stunning soundtrack. Shinin' by Mondo Grosso is the one tune everyone comes back to - and with good reason - but it was just one of a host of similarly gorgeous works that made every second of that game a joy to play. From dance-floor housey stormers to scratched up hip hop and rock, there was something for everyone...yet regardless of your tastes, every track seemed to hit the nail on the head, time-in, time-out. I guess good music is good music at the end of the day.

Lumines Reloaded!

My advice? Avoid the analogue sticks. The 360's D-Pad ain't perfect, but it works for Lumines

A year on then, here we are again. Lumines Live! is half port of the PSP game, and half brand new goodness, along with a bonus online mode thrown in for good measure. How well does the experience translate from tiny handheld screen to mastadonic living room television? Personally, fine I'd say. The rainbow-like colours pop right out of your telly as if staring directly at the sun, and the need to take in a good 32" worth of shapes as opposed to a mere 4 may jar at first, but soon enough one's able to settle back into that all too comfortable Lumines rhythm and start racking up some high scores. Ah, I missed you.

Those ever pretty sights do indeed shine like never before on a big HD television, but once again it's really the music that stands out more than anything. The jump from tinny PSP speakers to a full blown 5.1 Dolby Digital rig is so ridiculously immense in fact, that words fail me. The thumping beats, the vocal stabs, the chimes from heaven...they really do culminate in one of the better sounding games around, to be frank.

As mentioned, a bunch of these skins and tunes are brand new too - one can only presume ripped from the upcoming PSP sequel Lumines II - with the new opener "Circles" quite possibly my favourite slab of Lumines toonage yet.

What really kicks arse though is the new "Skin Edit" mode. This lets you pick and mix all your favourite tracks and skins into your own custom playlists, avoiding those you ain't a fan of, while remixing the game's score like some kinda crazy controller waving video DJ. It's such a simple yet perfect idea, you wonder why such a feature wasn't ever included in the PSP game.

Lumines Dead!

Unfortunately, while a bunch of the original classic tracks from the PSP original come intact, not all made it across. The aforementioned Shinin' ain't to be seen, ditto with many more. This leads us into a big old slam of negativity surrounding this release....it's actually incomplete.

I refer not just to music and skins, but actual in-game features as well. The Vs. CPU mode? Most of the puzzle challenges? Even the new "Advanced" mode? They all require "unlocking" I'm afraid.

Lumines II touches down on the PSP next month, along with the mind-blowing Gun-Pey. How much will it differ to this Live port though?

What's that you say? Unlocking? Like most Arcade games then? Er, no sir. I mean even once you've bought the damn thing, these additional modes require even further investment to unlock.

The Advanced challenge "bonus pack" is already up on the Marketplace in fact, and that includes a further 20 skins as well. Being the Lumines junkie that I am, I snagged the sucker immediately, and the new tracks are indeed stunningly glorious. But here's the thing...these add-on packs fetch for a whopping great 600 Microsoft points each. Coupled with the 1200 point cost of the basic game, you're looking at a hefty fucking wad o' points for Lumines I'm afraid. It's a rapin' time!

To be fair, Lumines on the PSP still goes for more than that in the average high street shop, and if I'm honest, I do think the game is worth it. If nothing else though, this all sets a worrying trend for future Arcade titles. Chopping games up into bits and pieces? Making you fork out for 'em on a feature by feature basis? Nope, not the way of the future in my eyes. Not by a long bloody shot.

Lumines Lagged!

This is all saved somewhat by the new online versus mode (which, thankfully, is included in the bog-standard base package. Confused yet?). Playable over Live as well as split screen, players are tasked with clearing their blocks faster than their adversary, while stealing more screen real estate in the process.

Lag does indeed pop up now and then - somewhat worrying when all you're dealing with is a few falling bricks - but when it works, it's fab. Clawing your way back from the squash-screened brink of death to win a game against some crazy northern bastard blaring down your ear (Jam), does indeed result in one of those all too rare and ever so satisfying online moments that single player games can just never quite match up to. Fun and enjoyable stuff then, and yet another game I'm throwing into the nightly Live rotation.

All in all, Lumines Live! is a fantastic slab of puzzle action, and definitely a modern classic in its genre. It's just unfortunate that as good as it is, it could have been so much better had dodgy pricing structures and skimped bonus modes not torpedoed it to a certain extent.

In these early days of publishers and developers feeling out the relatively new world of downloadable content and micropayments, stumbling blocks like this and the infamous Oblivion horse armour are to be expected I guess.

Then again, we're almost a year into this system's life-cycle now, and it's pretty bloody aggravating to still see some fumbling so spectacularly...

(Pictures courtesy of Xbox)