Publisher/Developer: Florian Zitzelsberger
Genre: Puzzle
Price: $1.99
Verdict: Brilliant homage to Lumines, if only its bugs could be ironed out.
Pros: Addictive fun that you can drop in and out of easily.
Cons:You can’t progress further than the first level at the moment!

Throughout gaming history every portable games system has had a puzzle game that went onto become ridiculously addictive and disrupt gamers’s sleeping patterns. The Gameboy had Tetris, the Game Gear had Columns, more recently the PSP had Lumines. You see, no matter how much you might be a huge fan of story driven gaming epics or simply blasting your way through alien hordes: nearly everyone can’t help but succumb to a seriously addictive puzzle game. I have yet to find someone who doesn’t like Tetris and I suspect if that person does exist, they live in a mental asylum somewhere. Anyway, away from my hideous stereotyping (it’s true though, damnit!) Blocks 2 is the nearest game on the App Store to being that puzzle game, the one that you can’t bear to tear yourself away from. It just needs a few adjustments for it to be completely unmissable.

It’s a shame that Blocks 2 is one of the dullest titles for a game I’ve seen in recent years. It’s the sort of title that people will overlook while browsing through the App store simply because regardless of the old saying, we do judge a book by its cover, or in this case we judge a game by its title. Especially when browsing quickly through the App Store to see what new games are on the scene. This is why you, yes you reading this now, need to go play Blocks 2 and spread the word. It deserves so much more attention than its title offers it.

Blocks 2 is a Lumines clone, a harsh thing to say perhaps but it’s true. That’s not a bad thing though, it happens. Some games are so great, they deserve to be copied to a certain extent. I could spend ages trying to avoid the issue and pretend that Blocks 2 is wonderfully unique and original, but it’s not. It has been done before but that’s no bad thing, it just means that Blocks 2 is copying a fantastic puzzle game which has to be good. Even better it’s cloning a fantastic game that can sell at full retail prices, for a mere $1.99.

For the Lumines virgin, Blocks 2 is a curious mixture of Columns and Tetris. Your goal is to arrange four or more equally coloured blocks next to each other, the blocks come down four at a time with an array of colours so it’s all a matter of lining them up in the right place. In Blocks 2, there are 28 different levels to work your way through. Each level has a different challenge, such as scoring a certain number of points, clearing the playfield or clearing a certain number of squares. This admittedly was where Blocks 2 fell down a little as I never got to see past the first level. It appears there’s a bug (which a solution is being worked on) that means players can’t progress past the first level. In which case I was left with the promise of so many more varied levels but never actually got to see them. An unfortunate problem indeed and something that certainly stops Blocks 2 from being as good as it should be. At least while that problem is being fixed, you can entertain yourself with an Endless mode though.

Controls are often a bit of a sticky issue with the touch based controls of the iPhone and iPod Touch, but Blocks 2 offers the best of both worlds by giving the player the choice of either touch based controls or a digital pad to use. I found initially that the touch based controls were a bit odd to get used to but after a few attempts, I found it quite intuitive and simple to use. Ultimately however I found the digital pad the easiest to use in the long run although it did disrupt the visuals somewhat. It was nice to see both control methods work so well though, choice can never be a bad thing.

Overall, Blocks 2 is a great game. It just suffers from that oh so annoying and somewhat crucial problem of not being able to progress further than the first level. It is a testament to the game’s level of fun though that I would still strongly recommend purchasing this. According to the game’s iTunes page, an update to fix this problem is in progress so perfect your Blocks 2 ability for now, then enjoy the benefit of the extra levels once the problems are ironed out.