"These columns will certainly not support anything, though they may distract you!"

The forms of genius.

Some games are new and original concepts. Each is a great out pouring of the creative soul of a dedicated artist, lovingly crafted to reflect his or her unique insight into the human condition. These games represent profound, fragile and brave attempts of a few poor individuals to impose a little of themselves onto the great and formless mass of impersonal reality.

Other games are basically clones of more successful titles. Columns, I'm rather sad to say, is not one of the unique artistic achievements I was going on about. Most people hold that it's a shameless knock off of Nintendo's similar (and extremely successful), puzzle game, Tetris. Even worse, whilst I was playing a collection of games released in the 80's such as Defender and Joust, I came across a game called Gems, which was not merely similar to Columns, but positively identical.

But it's not my job here to press the plunger of plagiarism, only to decide if this game should simply be flushed down the toilet of history or not. My many musings regarding this are contained below.

All hale the pointless one, the Sun god!

As a puzzle game, columns has absolutely no plot whatsoever, so we'll move straight on to graphics.

The theme of the game is rather strangely Egyptian for some reason, with many of the menus and other text featuring elaborate designs. The in game graphics though, are straight and to the point, a bright colour for falling blocks and a nice, dark back drop to provide contrast. There's not really much else to say. The graphics get the job done I suppose, but after prolonged playing they can be rather wearing, since the block's colours seem fairly muted and the stage backdrop never changes. I would've certainly liked to see a brighter colour scheme and some more variety too, as seen in puzzle games like Tetris Attack or Wario's woods, but since both of these were produced later on in the 16 Bit era, I'm probably expecting too much here.

Plonk!

The sound in this game is rather nasty. There are exactly three effects
(Beware, extreme and dire spoilers follow!),
a tang when you change the order of the blocks, a clump when you drop them, and a plonk when some blocks vanish. That's it.

Even by the standards of other puzzlers, this is a pretty poor show.

Disney be ware.

The music of the game is also rather minimal. There is exactly one tune that plays during the arcade mode. You'll be pleased to know though, that if you prefer to set up and choose the stats for the game, you get %300 extra choice!
That's right! Three, hole tunes, and you can choose any of them.

All the tunes sound relatively Arabian and I suppose, atmospheric (if you insist), but sadly all the tunes are also produced by the Mega Drive's truly agonizing sound chip, and this is not an occasion where the best was made of a bad job.

Even given the hardware trouble, the fact that there was so little music is, I think, simply due to shear sloppiness on the part of the developers.

Redemption.

Most people will have come across Tetris in some way, shape or form. The game is so pervasive, with a million permutations and variations, from one involving the Nintendo's scope gun, to a purely musical version of Tetris for visually impaired gamers.

Even though it's not officially under the Tetris umbrella, Columns is, without a doubt, a Tetris variation.

The game involves stacks of three or four coloured blocks descending into the screen. Pressing the buttons will shift the order of the coloured blocks within each stack, and moving the pad or stick right or left will alter where they land. If three blocks of the same colour are placed so that they form a line vertically, horizontally or Diagonally, they vanish. The bad news is, if so many blocks pile up that more can't fit onto the playing area, it's game over. While the beginner will simply jam blocks anywhere to create room, the more advanced player will look for combos, where destroying one set of falling blocks allows the blocks above it to descend and take out more of these excess cubes of pointlessness that may be waiting below.

This is a simple but strangely addictive formula for a game. On Arcade mode the blocks will increase in speed as more are destroyed, making it a test of your speed and pattern creating skills.

The learning curve is a nice rolling grassy slope, and the game is easily as gently mindless as Tetris. I found the game actually more forgiving of mistakes than some in this genre, since combos are not particularly hard to come by, so if your best laid plan gets buried, there's no need to start twisting your ears in fury.

Also, the fact that diagonal lines of blocks can mysteriously disappear virtually wrenches the difficulty factor in half. Perhaps the developers could have considered giving you the ability to disable this feature?

One unpleasantly hairy germ in the several diseases of this game is it's distinct lack of modes of play. While you can set your speed, number of colours used for the different blocks, or choose to destroy a set number of blocks in the fastest time possible, non of these provides a lot of variety to the main game. Even competitions with your friends are rather bland, (and that's assuming your friends are interesting to start with!), since there's no way (unlike games such as Kirby's Ghost trap or Puzzle fighter), to effect your opponent's progress, it's all just about speed and combo ability.

The game has nothing to unlock, no rewards (other than score), and no progress other than the blocks getting faster and faster. While increasing speed is definitely a reward if your training for a marathon, it's not quite so desirable in your quiet, gaming hobby.

Whatever else is said though, the game is still moderately fun to play.

Always look on the bright side of games.

So we have Columns, a simple camp follower of Tetris, with a very similar formula and no real in game features. What many people forget though, is that the Tetris formula is one of the most successful in gaming history. Even today, Tetris type games are still being produced.

So obviously the question is, is the formula fun?

In my mind, the answer is a most affirmative, if slightly reserved yes! The game is simple and mindless, perfect for a five or ten minute break, and ideal for listening to music or books on tape while playing (solving the problem of the games' blood blistering soundtrack). Also, if you need to consider a problem, this game's a perfect and soothing background for your deliberations, since it keeps part of your mind busy while the rest is free to wander.

If your interested only in the best of the mega Drive, then in all honesty this isn't the game for you. If your in the habit of keeping your Mega Drive permanently plugged in however, you might consider paying the £2 it will cost to buy this game, as it can be the perfect way to give your brain a rest between more high tension gaming sessions.

Think of Columns not as a game, but as a convenient little distraction, allowing the rest of your attention to Rome at will. While it's no work of art, it may give you the mild relaxation necessary for you to create one.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/06