Tetris

"Russian Blockheads"

Every gamer has at one time or another played the puzzle game Tetris. Often considered one of the best in the genre with its apparent addictive qualities for most people, Tetris is the “classic” that everyone remembers; especially with it being the original pack-in for Nintendo's handheld the GameBoy. People just seemed to not have it in them to release their kung-fu grips on their gray, little piece of plastic when Tetris had been slammed in. I, on the other hand, was never really addicted to the game as much.

The premise of the game is simple and clean: control falling formations of blocks to form rows. Lather, rinse, repeat until you can't go on or one of the three funky Russian pieces of music drives you crazy. You'll have a different assortment of blocks to command including the L-shape, the square, the really long line, the reverse L-shape, the zigzag, the other zigzag, and finally the capital T with its ass cut off. As one of these shapes drops from the sky, you have to move them with the d-pad to get them where you want. Also, you can hold down on the d-pad to speed up a shape. This is an excellent feature because it can really move the game along making for a more entertaining experience. You can even hit a button to rotate the shape 90 degrees, with a noise that sounds like a robot coughing, to fit everything in nice and snuggly. The blocks will come crashing down to the ground, with a sound not too unlike a baseball hitting a car door. In addition at the bottom right corner of the screen, the game gives a tiny picture of what shape is soon to fall next. That was a pretty sweet feature because it allowed for additional strategy knowing what shape would be at your disposal in the next couple of seconds. Eventually you'll create a row of blocks, it'll flash, the row will disappear and you'll have a bundle of points instead.

Of course, if you're spatial reasoning isn't all it should be, you'll find yourself in a world of trouble early on. You'll start making goof-ups that create open spaces between blocks. You'll have a bottom row nearly complete, then a second row with about four blocks missing, and finally a third row on top about to be complete. This situation is a disaster waiting to happen. You'll have to scramble to complete the third row, then the second, and finally the last so you don't have to worry about your stacks of rows becoming too high. If you keep letting them grow and grow, then eventually you'll hit the top of the screen and not be able to add more blocks. This is when the screen crumbles, the game makes a noise like a goat farting, and it's Game Over, pal. You can think of it like the Containment Theory for Communism. If you isolate Communism and put it all in one tiny space (in this case, a full row) it disappears. However, if Communism is allowed to spread (aka the blocks), then it crushes the entire world (our screen). Wait a minute. Wasn't this game made by Russians? Oh crap.

Getting away from the Russians, Tetris does offer two gameplay modes, but they don't have too many differences. In Type A, you simply have to rack up as many points as possible before reaching a Game Over. This can be done by merely gaining lots of rows or creating massive combos by completing multiple rows in one turn. As your progress through Type A, the speed of the dropping shapes increases, so be wary. Type B, however, wants you to earn as many points before hitting 25 rows. In addition, you can cause a bit of trouble for yourself by adding in ten different settings of random block debris from none at all to nearly at the top of the screen. The latter proves very challenging. Ah, what a simple yet enjoyable game that makes you think.

Wait, simple game? Now there's your problem. Despite the fun I had with Tetris, I didn't find it all that addictive. I can spend an hour here and there, but then I grow tired of the game. You just drop blocks to create rows over and over again. It doesn't even take me too long to inflate my score by placing my blocks just right; it's not that hard. When a game's most complicated maneuver is getting rid of several rows at once, it just doesn't grip you like a true addictive game should. This is more of a game that's excellent in small doses (kind of like really, really, really strong coffee). Before I know it, I'm always putting away my bulky GameBoy (because there's no way I'd buy a GameBoy Advance) and getting ready for a rousing game of anything else.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/12/04