Lumines and Meteos coming to Mobile Phones

[bapenguin]

Two extremely excellent puzzle games are coming to mobile phones (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/09/07/news_6132737.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6132737) in 2006. Meteos (http://meteos.nintendods.com/) (Nintendo DS) and Lumines (http://www.ubi.com/US/Games/Info.aspx?pId=1937) (Sony PSP) were designed by Q! founder and Sega scion Tetsuya Mizuguchi, whose credits include such works as Rez and Space Channel 5.

Both games are extremely addictive, and extremely fun.

[Nessus]

I really like Meteos. It takes some getting used to because it makes no attempt to make you feel comfortable. Not like Tetris where you can just zone out while playing, you have to pay attention and remain sharp when you're playing Meteos.

I would love it if they'd port Tetrisphere to DS, though. That is a total zone-out game at the opposite end of the spectrum. It also had a really fun 2 player mode.

[Steve_Erhardt]

I nabbed Lumines this weekend.

Fun, and I don't regret buying it, but I don't feel it's the awesome game everybody was raving about.

Question for the Lumines veterans though... Puzzle mode... how the fuck do you make the shapes? Like the first level says 'fill in the cross shape' but how can you do that on the horizontal part when the blocks fall to the bottom? Or am I just thinking too literally and all I need to do is fill the board until the cross shadow is covered (as well as areas that aren't part of the shape)?

[Kamalot]

How on earth would one play Meteos on a cellphone without a touch screen? Lumines, sure, that'll port anywhere with a D-pad, nothing special about the PSP, but Meteos would only be playable on PDA-Phones with touch screens.

?!?!

[bapenguin]

eh, it's called a cursor. Woudln't be that hard if you slow the game down a bit to play without a touch screen.

[solinari6]

I nabbed Lumines this weekend.

Fun, and I don't regret buying it, but I don't feel it's the awesome game everybody was raving about.

Question for the Lumines veterans though... Puzzle mode... how the fuck do you make the shapes? Like the first level says 'fill in the cross shape' but how can you do that on the horizontal part when the blocks fall to the bottom? Or am I just thinking too literally and all I need to do is fill the board until the cross shadow is covered (as well as areas that aren't part of the shape)?
You have to make a cross of that size with either color, but every other touching block must be of the other color. Like this:

XXOX
XOOOX
XXOXX

Some of those X's are optional, but you just can't have any other O's next to the "Cross" O's.

How far have you gotten in Lumines regular mode yet? The thing I like about it, is when you get into those 20 minutes sessions, you sort of go into this trance state, and the whole world kind of blurs away.

[Justin_McElroy]

My ladyfriend refuses to call Lumines anything but Tetris 2, which doesn't even make sense. So I traded it in.

By the way, it's not your fault Solinari6, but that still doesn't make a lick of Gorram sense to me. I'm just dumb.

[Bone]

Meteos is fun, but I found something that almost ruined it for me. I started to panic and just swiped at the screen, and found I could clear blocks faster with random tapping than with strategic taps.

Now that I've gotten to harder levels, there are some situations where I use a combination of random swiping along with more calculated moves to try and launch huge blocks, and that seems to work out OK.

It just reminded me of the first Mortal Kombat where you could be a total expert at the controls and someone could just sit there and footsweep you to a pathetic victory.

[Kamalot]

I beat every one of my friends at Meteos that attempts to use the "Scribble" attack method. Sure, it can help beginners get out of a sticky situation, but a good player will ALWAYS beat a scribbler.

[Bone]

Your scribbling technique is no match for mine!

[KDups]

How on earth would one play Meteos on a cellphone without a touch screen?

The game allows you to play without the touch screen, using only the d-pad and the buttons. I can't imagine it's as fun, but it's possible.

[Bone]

Yea. I think something is lost in the translation when you're not gesturing at the screen like Johnny Mnemonic.

[Nessus]

I tried using the d-pad on Meteos. It's unplayable. You just can't move fast enough.

You need to be able to pull blocks from the bottom of a stack to the top in less than a second.

[Steve_Erhardt]

You have to make a cross of that size with either color, but every other touching block must be of the other color. Like this:

XXOX
XOOOX
XXOXX

Some of those X's are optional, but you just can't have any other O's next to the "Cross" O's.

How far have you gotten in Lumines regular mode yet? The thing I like about it, is when you get into those 20 minutes sessions, you sort of go into this trance state, and the whole world kind of blurs away.
Thanks solinari... I think I understand what you're describing there. I'll try it tonight.

I've played it a lot, though never really timed the sessions, but I've gotten far enough to unlock like 2 or 3 more backgrounds, and I HAVE hit that trance state... was playing it at my desk at lunch earlier this week, and almost overshot my lunch hour because the rest of the world had faded away, LOL.

[Stormwatcher]

I think that the point of meteos is playing wit the stylus... It would become kinda dull otherwise.