A fun puzzler, but not quite top of the line.
Meteos is all about quick short runs. A good game lasts less than 5 minutes. So coming off of Lumines in which I could go for 3 hours straight, playing Meteos wasn't exactly what I was expecting. My initial reaction was to just leave it go and go back to Lumines, however, after a bit more work with it I started to dive deeper into the world of Meteos and deep down it's a pretty cool game.
Meteos is a puzzler which is played all on the bottom screen. Blocks will fall from top to bottom and stack up. Its your job to use the stylus to move them up and down (there is no left and right movement) and line in up with other blocks of the same color in rows of 3 or more. The meteos will them "ignite" and launch up towards the top pushing everything above them up. However, depending on the weight of the meteos and the gravity of the planet you are currently on they may not make it all the way in which you will need to use some more advanced techniques to get them launched up.
The goal is to destory other planets before they destroy you. As you launch meteos they attack the other planet you are currently up against and the computer launches meteos at you. There are several different paths you can take through the main mode that put you up against different planets, but the final showdown is always with planet Meteos itself.
There are a few different game modes you can partake in. There is the story mode I mentioned above along with a quick play mode where you can set your settings and play one quick game, a vs mode for playing other friends (with or without a DS game card), a timed mode for seeing how many meteos you can destroy within time limits and also a fusion mode.
Fusion mode is how you'll unlock things in the game; of which there are plenty. Everytime you launch a meteos it gets added to your "stock." You can then use these meteos to fuse planets, sounds, and items. There are a ton of planets to fuse and some of them will take a lot of meteos play time; some are worth it some aren't. For the most part though, it's worth playing to fuse these planets. The sounds are not quite as worth it though. The items are pretty cool for multiplayer mode to make it a little more interesting.
There are also planets that you can't fuse and you'll need to unlock through different means that will require some extra effort.
Meteos is definitly a worthy addition to the DS's library, it just wasn't quite what I was expecting when I loaded it up that first time. However, everytime I put it in to play it I can't stop for about a week. It's fairly addictive once you get going. With it's large amount of unlockables (fusions) it will eat up quite a bit of time as well. Try it out first to see if it's for you, but if you enjoy be sure to pick it up cause chances are you'll be spending quite a bit of time with it.