"Best version of Tetris ever. Period."

If you just happened to stumble upon this game while browsing GameFAQS, you may be wondering, “WTF is TENGEN Tetris?” Basically, it was a version of Tetris released for the NES that was manufactured by a company called *gasp* Tengen. They had become annoyed with Nintendo's licensing restrictions on them and decided to manufacture their own cartridges (no matter what company created a game, Nintendo always manufactured the cartridges) for their NES games. It's a long story, but what basically ended up happening was that Tengen released their version of Tetris before Nintendo's version, which obviously ticked Nintendo off. Nintendo sues Tengen, Tengen is forced to remove their Tetris game from the shelves and DESTROY any copies that were not yet sold only a month after the game's release.

Anyways, enough history lessons, lets get down to it. Is this game worth your hard-earned (or begged for) cash if you happen to find it somewhere? YES. And I'll tell you why: this version of Tetris is superior to Nintendo's in EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY. The biggest plus to this version is the inclusion of a 2-player mode, which Nintendo's version severely lacked (and hurt the replay value of tremendously). No more taking turns here, now you and a buddy can shoot for that high score at the same time! Now, as if the usual 2-player competitive mode weren't enough, there's also 2 player CO-OP! Yes, I said CO-OP! “How does that work?” you may ask. Simple, when you start a 2-player co-op game, both yours and your friend's blocks fall IN THE SAME SECTION. This absurdly simple concept creates a very interesting Tetris game because, even though you and your friend have to work together to create lines, each player is scored separately (the person who creates the line(s) gets the points for them), so you still need to be competitive to get the highest score. There's also 2-player competitive and co-op against the CPU, but the AI is so absurdly dumb in co-op mode it's a joke to play, which is really the only negative part about this game.

So what else makes this stand out from Nintendo's version? You can choose what music you want to play from 4 tracks before you start a game (they're some pretty catchy tunes too), there's actual separation between levels (with Russian dancers!) so you can take a little break between levels, and the game itself is an almost arcade-perfect port. If you find this game at a local shop for a reasonable price, PICK IT UP IMMEDIATELY. It will be the best thing you can possibly do for your NES (besides fix that damn blinking problem…).

Overall rating: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/04