Comparisons have been made between the release of the PSP and its flagship Lumines and the original Game Boy that allude it’s some measure of the platform’s success. These comparisons would be entirely valid, too, except for the fact that Lumines is a separate purchase from its already overpriced do-all platform. Tetris came with the Game Boy, and for some people that’s all they ever played. Reviews claim that Lumines is the only game you will need for the PSP. Let’s contrast the DS. Released four months previous, the standout launch title was Super Mario 64 DS. An excellent port, but it doesn’t promote the short game sessions portable gaming should be striving for. It’s also not a title that embodies the unique gameplay opportunities gestating within the DS.

Polarium was a puzzler released for the DS earlier this year to noncommittal reviews: it used the stylus, to be sure, but the gameplay was dreadfully uninspired. The color scheme was equally boring, and the game wouldn’t seem out of place on a cellphone. DS owners were left feeling cold. Until some colorful blocks started falling from the blackness of space.

Meteos was designed by the same studio that developed Lumines, and as such further comparisons were made. Could Meteos be the puzzler the DS needed to bring players to its touchscreen? Having never played Lumines, I can’t gauge its adequacy as a puzzler. I can, however, tell you if Meteos is the game prospective DS players have been waiting for. It is not.

Be forewarned that puzzle games aren’t usually the type of distraction I turn to when I’m looking for something to occupy my game time, however I believe they are the ones best suited for portable platforms. I like having the option of picking something up and playing for short bursts and not having to worry about story, item management or making it to the next save point. The simplicity of puzzle games makes them accessible; it is in this genre that portable gaming will win the hearts of new gamers. I’m still waiting for developers to figure this out instead of trying to see who gets their respective platform to push out the most ridiculous number of polygons.

Surprisingly, Meteos has a story of sorts. Apparently the evil planet Meteo loves to bombard his neighbor planets with large, colorful blocks from the sky (meteos), causing an eventual “supernova” when the blocks reach the top of the screen. The goal of each game is to make sure this doesn’t happen, by sending the blocks right back into space. The stylus is used to form up three or more identical blocks in a horizontal or vertical row. Once you make a row or column, they blast off into the atmosphere, hopefully leaving the screen. The Each gameboard is based on a “planet” under attack by Meteo, which has its own gravitational field and types of blocks. The gravitational field is the most important aspect of play, because it must be overcome or used to your advantage. Blocks that don’t quite make it out of your planet’s atmosphere will be incinerated, and fall back into your pile leaving an unusable obstacle. Eventually these blocks become meteos again, but by then it may be too late.

The concept is simple, but the challenge is getting used to surveying the entire playing field during play. When you’re dealing with individual blocks that occasionally have indistinguishable patterns, it becomes hard to keep track of everything in the race to launch meteos. It is here that the stylus becomes indispensable. Meteos gives you the option of using the DS’s buttons to manipulate the blocks, but this would be an exercise in futility. The stylus makes the frenetic gameplay a lot easier to handle.

Where Tetris or Dr. Mario pit you against the falling objects themselves and asking you to ascend through a series of arbitrary levels, Meteos takes a different approach. The aforementioned gravitational fields on different planets, for one, but the game also sets you up against computer-controlled opponents. See, Meteo is attacking more than one planet at a time, and you may be faced with up to three opponents who are all trying to eliminate meteos from their planets and sending them right to you. The matches progress similarly to multiplayer Tetris in that the meteos you launch into space are placed into your opponent’s stack for him to deal with. There’s really no gauge to see how well you’re doing except a view of your opponent’s grid; even then, I found I was more focused on forming up combos to launch as many meteos as possible.

As games still continue to feel out the DS’s capabilities, I’m sure we’ll see more efficient use of screen real estate. The core of Meteos’ gameplay lies on the touchscreen, and I felt the upper screen was wasted space. Sure there are cute little animations of each planet’s mascot alien, and you can actually see your launched meteos bombard the planets you’re battling – but that’s about it. There is no need to look above the hinge in the DS’s two screens.

In Meteos there are only two dimensions of movement: you can move blocks up or down through a column. In this manner you can form up horizontal rows or vertical rows for launching. When you begin the learning curve, this task can seem daunting when trying to search for that third block while catching up with the speed of play. The stacks of similar looking blocks become a frustrating obstacle, and so you wave your stylus around hoping that you’ll see some meteos blast off into the air. And sometimes, it happens.

For me, this is where the game fell apart. While the number of worlds is made to seem infinite and the game mode options plentiful, the gameplay itself becomes repetitive in this regard. The limited dimensions of movement forces you to strategize, but only to a point. I’ll admit that when the blocks begin to reach the top of the grid it’s time to start wiping the screen. This could be considered an issue of self-control, but I see it as a flaw in the gameplay mechanic. There is no direct relationship between skill and success. In Tetris you were given different shapes with alternate rotations, requiring a bit of planning and quick wits to implement them.

In the Star Trip game mode, Meteos’ equivalent of a “story” mode, you play through subsequent planets and eventually must face Meteo. I was able to beat Meteo at least 10 times during my first few hours with the game, with little effort. Each challenge on the way to Meteo is unbearably short, and you’ve either beat your opponent or caused him to supernova within a few minutes. There is no long-term mode of play, and you’re probably better off playing “simple” mode which allows you to customize your opponents and gameboard. This is probably just a byproduct of the puzzle genre itself, however: the gameplay in Meteos is best suited to single servings.

Unfortunately, Meteos isn’t the game that will get you to buy a Nintendo DS. In my opinion there is no game like that right now, unless you believe the hype surrounding Kirby’s Canvas Curse. Meteos is priced well as a month old release, and will definitely provide enjoyment to current DS owners that don’t want to invest too much in this unique puzzler. What made Tetris so widely appealing was its easily graspable, multi-dimensional game mechanic with no real “end” that managed to provide countless hours of enjoyment. A cute aesthetic and an original game concept, Meteos will not be remembered as one of the DS’ standard bearers, but as forerunner to what’s ahead for the platform.

in geometric order