Luminator DS (Hands-On) (Nintendo DS) Preview

First things first, the game very aesthetically focused, with funky, techno tunes playing throughout and swirling, well-animated and extremely colourful backgrounds taking centre stage to give the game a certain edge that other puzzle titles on the DS definitely do not have. There are currently fifteen tunes in total, although in all honesty there are just eight as many are remixed and re-used for different stages. But the line-up of music is very aurally pleasing indeed, with the excellent Novaspace version of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time being a particular stand out track and the others giving off a suitably 'cool' atmosphere as well. The only drawback comes when you get to trying to see the actual blocks in the game...(more on that in a short while).

Which brings me nicely on to how things are laid out in terms of how it plays. All of the action takes place on the lower screen, with score details found on the top, leading you to presume the game is heavily touch-screen oriented. Sadly, though, the versatile lower screen is not used in the slightest and everything is simply mapped onto the directional pad and two of the face buttons (one to rotate blocks and the other to make them drop quicker). Unoriginal, but it does not stop the game from being extremely playable. As for that top screen, other than score details, you are shown what blocks are next in line to drop down, the number of cubes already formed on that level, the current High Score to beat, your present score total and information about the background music.

There are two main modes: Step-by-Step and Puzzle. The first is split into 'Continuous' and 'Time', the former being completely open and free, the latter against the clock. Each stage of the game pits you in an arena with blocks of two-by-two dropping slowly from the top-centre of the lower screen and you must move them left or right, spinning them as necessary (since they come in various combinations, sometimes all four of one colour/pattern, but mainly mixtures of two colours/patterns) and then placing them down in such a fashion that you make two-by-two blocks of the same colour. Once a block such as that has been made, it becomes highlighted and a 'beat line', that moves from the left of the screen to the right at speeds related to the tune playing on that particular stage, will then blast them all away, leaving the field a little less cluttered for the next block of two-by-two that will already be falling down from the top.

It should be noted that these two-by-two blocks do not stick together upon impacting with blocks already placed around the screen, which brings in a nice element of skill as once the left side of the blocks hit other blocks, the right side slides away and falls lower down (and vice versa), if possible, meaning more than one set of blocks can be highlighted at any one time if skilful / lucky enough. Sadly, though, each stage brings with it differently stylised tile types and whilst (for instance) black / red ones are easy to distinguish between, others such as the brown-shaded cookie tiles are a real pain and mistakes will be made as a result. To counter this (unnecessary) annoyance, though, there is the positive addition of special tiles that can be used to create massive chains, as when they touch one particular tile, any adjacent ones of the same type will automatically be highlighted as well and the score you receive will shoot up considerably when the beat line scoots across the screen.

Other than working your way through the main Step-by Step mode on the different difficulty levels, progressing through the stages by creating and clearing fifty of the two-by-two blocks and achieving the best High Scores possible, though, there is the Puzzle mode, which is a real nightmare in comparison. The objective here is to arrange blocks in certain forms and figures on the lower screen, with the result you are aiming for being illustrated on the top screen. Now, whilst trying to make the letter 'L' might be a case of easy trial and error, when you get down to other shapes, should as a stick man, you will be sure to get a major headache from trying to recreate it!