Over the years videogames have become hugely complex beasts, but there remains an undying appetite for digital puzzles that distill gaming down to its very essence.

Sony may have created that clever PS3 ad showing an exploding Rubik’s Cube, but the company’s own PSP survived its rocky first year largely on the back of Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Lumines, which, along with his Nintendo DS game Meteos (recently re-released with a Disney license), were merely the then-latest in a long line of Rubik’s digital offspring.

The pioneer was Tetris--an ‘80s icon off the original Nintendo, which has since sold over 60 million games and been ported to 30 different console and devices, including cell phones, iPods and, of course, the DS (which made it multiplayer). Designed by Russian engineer Alexey Pajitnov at the height of the Cold War, it certainly did more to humanize the evil empire than any stupid Sting song. Its latest iteration is THQ’s Tetris Evolution, due out on Xbox 360 later this month, which features customizable skins and multiplayer via Xbox Live--but will be an old-school retail title, not an Live Arcade download like the controversially-overpriced Lumines Live.

Speaking of, Mizuguchi’s Q Entertainment also pumped out another version of its hit with Lumines Plus which takes the classic PSP title, adds a few skins from last fall’s sequel (smartly leaving behind the crappy pop songs) then ports the whole shebang over to the Playstation 2. As ever, it combines Tetris-type block-dropping gameplay with Q’s trademark musical flourishes--though I remain a bigger fan of his 2001 PS2 puzzle game REZ, a pulsing beat-based shooter that provided ravers with a perfect post-party comedown, and last fall’s Every Extend Extra which combines expertly-timed explosions with electronic music and d-lysergic graphics.
 
But as much as puzzle games have evolved over the past two decades, their essential appeal has remained exactly the same--simple-yet-challenging gameplay that appears purpose-built for pick-up and put-down sessions yet is addictive enough to keep you button-mashing until your thumbs bleed.