Guest article by Jesse Ross
The fundamental flaw of a normal life is that you can’t level up, join factions, explore space, befriend an irritated Peter Dinklage, and get rewarded for precision head shots.
Unless, that is, you accidentally join the army or befriend The Richard Branson - and we must accept that such things would be far too scary/brave/evil for most gamers.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee you will be stationed alongside Peter Dinklage, or that he will be in a pleasingly irritated mood. In regards to wonky-block cleaning-lady simulation classic Tetris (or "Tetris", as it is known in Russia) this is even more evident. Here is my review.
The fundamental flaw of a normal life is that you can’t level up, join factions, explore space, befriend an irritated Peter Dinklage, and get rewarded for precision head shots.
Unless, that is, you accidentally join the army or befriend The Richard Branson - and we must accept that such things would be far too scary/brave/evil for most gamers.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee you will be stationed alongside Peter Dinklage, or that he will be in a pleasingly irritated mood. In regards to wonky-block cleaning-lady simulation classic Tetris (or "Tetris", as it is known in Russia) this is even more evident. Here is my review.
NO NOTHING: JUST BLOCKS
Tetris has no atmospheric worlds to jump around in while snapping off headshots to feed a desperate XP addiction.
There are no cloaked, gender-neutral sci-fi wizards who sound suspiciously like the creme-skinned dullard from Love Actually. On the contrary, it is literally just falling blocks. Or, from the misguided PR leaflet: "A hailstorm of mishapen bricks that ceaselessly rain down against a bleak, monochrome background while you pointlessly arrange them into walls for no reason and to achieve nothing."
While I’ll admit the Soviet-era music is quite rousing - at times causing me to consider the use of RPGs against civilians - it is nothing compared with the orchestral grandeur of, say, Marty O’ Donnell’s ‘Double Jumping on Venus with Peter Dinklage’ (to choose a game theme at random).
Watching blocks fall is just not the same as - for example - flying through future space and shooting aliens over and over again in the hope of finding a mega gun. And therein lies Tetris’s fatal flaw. Its basic conceit; that random, mishapen blocks falling at rapidly increasing speed should somehow be ordered into walls, is fatally flawed.
Tetris has no atmospheric worlds to jump around in while snapping off headshots to feed a desperate XP addiction.
There are no cloaked, gender-neutral sci-fi wizards who sound suspiciously like the creme-skinned dullard from Love Actually. On the contrary, it is literally just falling blocks. Or, from the misguided PR leaflet: "A hailstorm of mishapen bricks that ceaselessly rain down against a bleak, monochrome background while you pointlessly arrange them into walls for no reason and to achieve nothing."
While I’ll admit the Soviet-era music is quite rousing - at times causing me to consider the use of RPGs against civilians - it is nothing compared with the orchestral grandeur of, say, Marty O’ Donnell’s ‘Double Jumping on Venus with Peter Dinklage’ (to choose a game theme at random).
Watching blocks fall is just not the same as - for example - flying through future space and shooting aliens over and over again in the hope of finding a mega gun. And therein lies Tetris’s fatal flaw. Its basic conceit; that random, mishapen blocks falling at rapidly increasing speed should somehow be ordered into walls, is fatally flawed.
NO RAILS EITHER
There are no rail attachments for the blocks - such as 2.0X zoom or flashlights. And neither do we get disembodied voices of actors, reading monologues in comfortable recording studios, glancing occassionally at their watches to check how many thousands they have just made uttering nonsense into microphones inbetween eating fruit.
In Tetris I can’t exactly gather a Fireteam consisting of a mentally ill former schoolmate, who now plays games all day to stave off another psychotic episode at the taxpayers expense, someone off the internet whose real name I can’t remember, and my brother who still doesn’t undertstand that you have to hold down X until the bar fills up not just repeatedly hammer it until everyone is dead and he is verbally abused until he logs off.
There are no rail attachments for the blocks - such as 2.0X zoom or flashlights. And neither do we get disembodied voices of actors, reading monologues in comfortable recording studios, glancing occassionally at their watches to check how many thousands they have just made uttering nonsense into microphones inbetween eating fruit.
In Tetris I can’t exactly gather a Fireteam consisting of a mentally ill former schoolmate, who now plays games all day to stave off another psychotic episode at the taxpayers expense, someone off the internet whose real name I can’t remember, and my brother who still doesn’t undertstand that you have to hold down X until the bar fills up not just repeatedly hammer it until everyone is dead and he is verbally abused until he logs off.
NO OPTIONS
No, online co-op is not an option with Game Boy Tetris. But even if it was, would you get to hear Dinklage’s warm, suicidally bored voice as you played? No, you would not. Unless he was on your team and you had VOIP enabled. But that’s just ridiculous.
The effort you’d have to go to to track down Dinklage via his US agent and then somehow rig up an internet-enabled Game Boy... and, let’s just leave it, alright? It’s never going to happen, probably.
In conclusion, Tetris is quite good if you’re a child or depressed housewife from the 1980s who suffers from extreme OCD and enjoys short, repetitive Soviet music that worms its way into your subconscious like a little Russian doll with indentical versions of itself housed within its chest that will one day give birth and kill you.
But if you’re someone who likes travelling back and forth from earth to space in 30 minute headshot/NPCinteraction bouts, like the love child of Boba Fett and Gandalf - whilst listening to the staggering music of a man who hates the people he works for - you’re out of luck. Tetris has little to none of that.
I give it 2.345 out of Destiny.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
No, online co-op is not an option with Game Boy Tetris. But even if it was, would you get to hear Dinklage’s warm, suicidally bored voice as you played? No, you would not. Unless he was on your team and you had VOIP enabled. But that’s just ridiculous.
The effort you’d have to go to to track down Dinklage via his US agent and then somehow rig up an internet-enabled Game Boy... and, let’s just leave it, alright? It’s never going to happen, probably.
In conclusion, Tetris is quite good if you’re a child or depressed housewife from the 1980s who suffers from extreme OCD and enjoys short, repetitive Soviet music that worms its way into your subconscious like a little Russian doll with indentical versions of itself housed within its chest that will one day give birth and kill you.
But if you’re someone who likes travelling back and forth from earth to space in 30 minute headshot/NPCinteraction bouts, like the love child of Boba Fett and Gandalf - whilst listening to the staggering music of a man who hates the people he works for - you’re out of luck. Tetris has little to none of that.
I give it 2.345 out of Destiny.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
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