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Tetris review

Game: Tetris
Platform: Game Boy
Genre: Casual (Puzzle)
Developer: Bullet Proof Software

Reader review by sgreenwell

Date unavailable

Tetris is more than just a game. To this day, it remains the undisputed champion of the puzzle genre. Newer, more advanced, and harder games have come out, but none have matched the impact achieved by Tetris, and it's highly unlikely that one will either.

In Tetris, you control blocks as they fall from the sky, on to the screen. They come in various shapes, but they are all comprised of four adjacent blocks. Some shapes include the S, the square, the L, and the straight line. It sounds more confusing than it really is.

An essential part of the game is the block flipping. Using either the A or B button, you can flip the rotation of a block, allowing it to fit into more places. The controlling takes a bit to get used to, but after playing the game for ten to thirty minutes, it will become second nature, like most other things in the game.

Using these blocks, your goal is to make a straight line across the screen. When this is achieved, the blocks vanish. However, the blocks never stop coming, so the game never really ends. By stacking blocks, you can create two, three, and even four line combinations. The points skyrocket when you start to rack up multiple line combinations.

The blocks don't fall at the same speed either. You pick a starting level, which determines the speed of the blocks. For every ten lines that you finish, you move up a level in speed. The point value of each line also goes up with each level.

The gameplay of Tetris is simple, fast, furious, and addictive. Most newcomers to Tetris simply can't put the game down. While some may argue that it's the same boring reptitious activity over and over again, it's helped out by the fact that no two games are alike. There's also a few little featurues sprinkled in here and there, such as a block clearing objective game, and the ability to see high scores, although they aren't saved.

Graphically, Tetris keeps it simple. All the graphics are in typical Game Boy shades of green, grey, and yellow. They're very clean, and thankfully, there is no slowdown, or blurry graphics, a problem present on many Game Boy games. Most of these problems are avoided because there is only one constantly moving item on the screen - the block that you're moving.

Tetris boasts one of the most memorable soundtracks in history. The very simple Tetris theme midi can be hummed by any true gamer, as can the ''Victory Music'' after a good round. There's also decent effects, although they can get on the nerves. Bleeps and blurls highlight the effects, usually after you complete a line.

Overall, Tetris is a must-have game. You can not call yourself a real gamer if you haven't played Tetris. The puzzle revolution that it started paved the way for future incarnations of itself, plus other puzzlers.

Rating: 10/10

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