Every handheld machine needs a puzzle game, something to pick up for a few minutes, give the old grey matter a workout and then put down again. The PSP's first offering is Lumines and it's a very addictive little number.

Here's how Lumines works: music pumps out and a thin line of light scrolls across the screen in time with the tune, while 2x2 blocks descend from the top of the screen. These blocks are made up of any combination of two colours, but only two colours are used for any given level. For example, you might have blocks made up of orange and silver, while a typical sequence might be an orange block with a silver bottom right corner, a block with an orange top half and silver bottom half and so on. You can rotate the blocks and slide them left or right, then place them at the bottom of the screen. Once you have made a complete 2x2 block of a single colour, then that block disappears. Simple eh?

Well it would have been, if it wasn't for the ingenious combo system. As soon as you've matched the colours and created whole blocks of colour, they become active and are highlighted. When this happens, you have a few seconds to bolt on as many of the same colour as possible in order to create a chain reaction and get a big scoring combination, not to mention getting rid of extra blocks. The time limit is determined by the previously mentioned line of light that passes across the screen in time to the music - you have until it reaches the end of the screen, at which point the active blocks disappear whether you've finished chaining the combo together or not! If the screen fills up high enough to prevent any more blocks falling in then it's game over.

If it's twisting your brain trying to understand the concept then, believe me, it'll completely fry it once you start playing. Unlike Tetris or Puyo Pop in single player mode, you have the full width of the PSP's screen on which to place your blocks. This gives you a massive playing area but it feels a little alien at first; you'll probably find yourself concentrating your efforts on one half of the screen and it takes some getting used to.

The first time I played the game in challenge mode (standard play where you unlock new block types, backgrounds and music) I found it really difficult to crack the 5000 points mark. The penny just didn't seem to be dropping at all, so I thought I'd have a look through some of the other game modes. The first one I tried was puzzle. In this you are given a shape that you have to recreate with a single colour within a time limit. It was tough at first, but as I progressed, I started to get an excellent feel for the blocks, their various guises and the strengths and weaknesses of each piece.

I went back to the main game after going as far as I could in the puzzle mode and smashed the 20,000 barrier straight away. It was difficult to retrain my brain to think in squares, rather than matching lines of colour like Tetris and now I've been playing Lumines solidly for two days, my head feels like it's going to cave in! It's all just a bit too mental!

Take the music for example - this game is by the fellow who came up with Space Channel 5 and Rez, so as you would imagine, the soundtrack plays a massive part in Lumines. As you move, rotate and get rid of pieces, instruments sound, which means unless you play in time with the music, the whole thing can sound like a garbled mess. Then there are the backgrounds. Early on they're nice, subtle aesthetic touches but as you progress they become more and more trippy. It seems as if rather than the game getting more difficult, it just seems to be trying to put you off. Even so, I still can't stop playing it!!! I can hear that ominous rumbling that precedes a cave in even as I write…

Lumines is taking over my life, but this is where the main flaw lies; the better you get, the longer it takes to complete one round. It's not unusual now that I've cracked the 100,000 points mark for one play to last an hour, which kind of defeats the whole quick blast of gameplay on the bus quality that games of this type usually have. Unless you've got a mate with a PSP - then you can battle it out together. The screen is split and as you clear the blocks, you're rewarded with more screen to play with. Obviously when this happens your opponent loses some of their play area. These games are lot better for a quick fix and while there is also the option of taking on CPU opponents, once you've got past the first three it gets super hard.

I really don't know what else to say about Lumines, it's brilliantly addictive but flawed in that it doesn't really let you play in short bursts. However, if you love puzzle games, this has got a lot more depth than anything of its kind that I've played before, even though you need to be willing to put the hours in to get the rewards. It's not as accessible as the competition, but maybe that's a good thing. At least it's not just another Tetris clone. It's well worth a purchase, but beware: Lumines will eat away your life and you will never, ever win.

Reviewed by Mark Hayhurst for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).