This year’s most immediately successful Christmas present: a Sony PSP + Lumines. It’s a Tetris-like game but more and better. After a while, Tetris just comes down to having incredibly fast fingers. Here, planning and forethought matter more, and it’s possible to get a lot better by practising. Higher levels are not just faster but also different, and require different tactics.

The “colorful, swirling backgrounds” that the review describes as “clear and clutter-free” are anything but, in my opinion (big flashing things in colours that are very close to the colours of actual game elements) but I’ve got to admit that they are quite pretty.

There are also “time attack” and “puzzle” modes which are good for short games – a full game now takes me about 30 – 60 minutes, depending on how well it goes. A very nice game; the first one in a long time that I’ve really loved, and quite addictive.