Amiga Power


Super Tetris

Author: Stuart Campbell
Publisher: Spectrum Holobyte
Machine: Amiga 500

 
Published in Amiga Power #17

Super Tetris

They wouldn't let it lie, would they? After numerous completely tragic attempts at bringing Tetris to the Amiga, totally eclipsed by some great PD versions (notably Super Twintris from our issue five coverdisk), MicroProse try to redress the balance with this new, sexy, improved, lots-of-extra-bits game which adds all manner of weird powerups and bonuses to the original block-dropping-and-line-filling gameplay.

For any of you who don't know the basic idea of Tetris, what you have to do is - no, only joking.

The best things among the new stuff here are the bombs which appear when you complete a line, allowing you to destroy parts of the scenery, which brings in a more tactical element lacking in the original game. Otherwise it's pretty much window-dressing stuff, which leaves us wondering whether the basic execution of the game merits paying out £30 for something you can now get for free. Um...

Well, first off, it's much better than the last professional job (the useless Infogrames one reviewed in issue two with 29%), with smooth-falling blocks and decent control (although still not as good as it could be - why no definable keyboard?), and some pleasantly clicky and bangy sound effects. You get three different kinds of two-player mode (competitive, co-operative and head-to-head) which are all pretty entertaining, and the new level-based structure (you complete levels rather than just playing forever until you lose) is more rewarding, but somehow it just isn't compulsive. Maybe the new features have overloaded the classic simplicity, maybe after three years and a hundred versions I'm just bored with it, but for all the bells and whistles I couldn't be bothered with Super Tetris after the first 20 minutes. This is, in all honesty, quite nice. You'd just have to be completely Tetris-loopy-nuts to spend £30 on it.

The Bottom Line

Sorry, but it's still not really any better than Super Twintris, and it's 30 quid more expensive. Vastly improved over the other official Amiga versions, but it just doesn't grip like a Tetris game should. Could it be that Tetris has just finally had its day?

Stuart Campbell

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