Although the announcement of an imminent sequel to last year's Lumines for the Sony PSP doesn't exactly get the heart pumping like a lot of show-stopping E3 games, but puzzle fans have to be getting their knickers in knot right about now.

Lumines II: Puzzle Fusion was on display and playable at the Q Entertainment booth at E3 2006. The original game was far and away the biggest launch title for Sony's handheld gaming system last year, and arguably the best puzzle game for any platform since Tetris caused people to ditch their Rubik's Cubes back in the late 1980s. The game's design changed the virtual block-arrangement template just enough to be fresh without forgoing the basic freakish addictiveness of puzzlers. In some circles, in fact, the PSP was referred to as that "Lumines machine."

Challenge mode was the only playable option at E3, and it revealed Lumines II as a game that looks and plays a lot like the original Lumines. Four-blocks cube still fall from the top of the screen, you still stack them to match colors and make them disappear. Feel is still fairly similar to Sega's Columns, which was one of the original Tetris wannabes from the early 1990s.

In fact, about the only major change seemed to be a graphics upgrade, new background visuals, and music, and sometimes a bit distracting (at the current stage of development, at least) with one level going so far as to feature goofy, floating phrases that seem geared for the "All You Need is Love" crowd. However, seeing as the original game had something of a hippie-friendly, emo-ish vibe to it, too, the flavoring might not be entirely unwelcome. A good thing, again, and much of it, too. Or too much of one and not enough of the other, maybe. Time will tell.

Q Entertainment booth jockeys indicated that Lumines II: Puzzle Fusion is nearing completion and should arrive in stores before the end of this year.