Previous Next

Tetris has got to be one of the most addictive games released this year. Originally programmed in Russia on the IBM, this wonderful arcade puzzler is being converted to most major 8-bit and 16-bit formats in the next couple of months.

As with many of the best games, the idea behind Tetris is beautifully simple. A variety of shapes appear at the top of the rectangular play area, and being dropping to the bottom. All you have to do, is guide the shapes down so that they fit together, jigsaw-like, leaving as few gaps as possible.

Whenever a horizontal line is completely filled by shapes, it disappears, leaving just those lines with gaps. If you allow the build-up of shapes to reach the top of the play area, the game is over.

The advantages of fitting the pieces together efficiently are twofold. Firstly, although points are awarded for every piece placed, you score bonus for every completed line. Secondly, the quicker you fill up a whole line, the quicker it disappears leaving more vertical distance for other shapes to fall, giving you more time to work out where to put them.

There are seven different shapes including Ts, Ls, Is and squares. As they drop, you can move them from side to side and rotate them until you're happy they are in the right orientation and are dropping in the right place.

As your score builds up, so does the rate at which the shapes drop down the screen. Sonner or later you will start to make mistakes leaving gaps in an ever-growing shape mountain.

Of course, the bigger the mountain, the less time you have to get yourself out of the mess, and before you know it, new shapes have settled on top, giving you even more of a headache.

By selecting one of the game's ten levels, you determine the initial dropping rate of the shapes, but the scoring mechanism elegantly compensates those that are brave, or stupid, enough to start on the more advanced levels, by awarding more points for each shape placed and line made. Thus, it it possible for players, effectively playing with different handicaps, to compare their performances.

Tetris is nicely rounded off with an atmospheric 25 minute soundtrack which fits the mood of the game perfectly.

Although the game itself cannot boast amazing graphics or digitised sound effects, neither are needed and indeed would only serve as a distraction from what is a brilliant, and totally addictive, game.

In fact, the boss of Broderbund, a leading US software house, has gone on record publicly as saying that turning down Tetris was the single biggest mistake of his commercial life... enough said!

Highly recommended. I wonder how many other game ideas are brewing back in the USSR!