It’s no surprise that, given the success of the first game that Q Entertainment and Buena Vista Games/Bandai would decide to release a second Lumines title. The original was one of the games launched with the PSP back in March 2005 and is still considered one of the most addictive and best games for the handheld system.
The developers had a couple of goals in mind in creating the sequel: to include enough fresh material to bring in new fans, as well as to keep the same winning formula to appease those who have been addicts since the beginning.
One of the major new additions comes by way of the full-screen, full-motion videos that will be playing in the background. The previous incarnation of the game had mostly static images while you played. This time around you’ll actually be seeing high-quality music videos playing from the likes of Beck, Gwen Stefani, Missy Elliott, Fatboy Slim, Black Eyed Peas, Chemical Brothers and Hoobastank. The developers are advertising that there are over 60 of these full-motion skins included in the game along with 100 music tracks. Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the chief creative officer of Q Entertainment, had overall veto power over each and every music video to be included in the game.
In order to showcase my vision for Lumines II, we needed to find music and videos with just the right tone, mix and energy to incorporate into the game. I couldn’t be happier with the result and am excited to get the game into players’ hands.
When you first pick up the game, you will now be offered a choice of three levels of difficulty as well as four main play modes. Challenge Mode is back and the vs. CPU mode remains largely unchanged, but Puzzle Mode has been pumped up to include around 100 different stages. Mission Mode makes you think about how to solve each puzzle, often giving you very strict guidelines – for instance, having to clear the screen in five moves or less. You’ll find about 50 of these objective-based levels included.
Early in October, a website was launched, including all sorts of game details, samples of the music videos and downloadable content in the way of both wallpapers and screensavers. Apparently you will also be able to get in on Lumines competitions via the site eventually. This is definitely a page to bookmark for the monster Lumines fan in you!
So make sure your battery is fully charged, find yourself a comfortable spot with a minimal chance of interruption and get ready to settle in for a long stretch of gaming as Lumines II comes your way. It was released in North America on November 6th and is expected to explode onto the European market later this month, on or around the 17th of November.
