Tetris has been around for what seems like forever. Perhaps this game was many people's first experience with video games. First introduced in 1985, there have been countless iterations since its inception. While a simple puzzle game at its core, it does have an addicting aspect that causes many to keep replaying Tetris over and over, all in the hopes of getting the next high score. This version, produced by EA doesn't stray too far from the proven formula.
Main plot: There really isn't a plot to Tetris, although some versions have tried to put a story to Tetris, this version tries no such ridiculous ideas. It presents itself as the game it is, a puzzle game tried and true.
Game play: As pieces fall from the top of the screen, players use the touch screen to control and move the pieces to where they want them to land. Tapping right on the screen causes the piece to rotate clockwise, while tapping on the left side causes them to do the reverse. In addition there are moves called soft and hard drops, which speed up how fast the pieces drop. To pull these moves off the player needs to pull the piece down or flick it down to get the respective move.
Why it's special: Tetris is a game that probably many have played on many different devices. Tetris has probably appeared on every device that has a screen. This version not only brings the old game to Apple's iOS platform but also has a new mode. Magic mode is where players can use special items to try and last even longer than the normal marathon mode.
Plus One:
The game: At the very center of this game it is still the same old familiar Tetris many have played over its 25 year life. If you've ever played one version of Tetris this version's marathon mode is no different from other versions.
The music: Although hard to find, the game music is actually quite good. From the menu screen having a modified Tetris theme song, to the in-game music, everything sounds nice. To actually get the music to play though players have to jump through to the options menu to turn it on. While the songs are short they do seem to fit the game quite well. If the music doesn't suite a player they can always use their own music while playing, which is a nice little feature considering some games outright refuse to let a player use their own music.
Interface: A simple menu system that is clean and elegant. A nice little feature on the main menu is there are some bubbles that appear from the bottom of the screen. Using any iDevice's accelerometer the bubbles will appear from the side the device is tilting towards.
Minus One:
Interface: Perhaps this is more of a gripe with Apple's devices than on the game itself but it is hard to play a game where there is no tactile feedback. This becomes very apparent when playing puzzle games. As mentioned earlier when trying to rotate pieces, players must tap different sides of the screen, yet it feels unnatural. Because there is no tactile feedback, players often over rotate pieces or place a piece in the wrong spot.
Difficulty: This version of Tetris seems to have an outrageous difficulty. The first few levels are rather slow and easy to advance but by level 7 the speed is going nearly 4 times that of level 1. This jarring speed does not lend itself to high scores. The highest level, level 15 has a near instantaneous drop rate of blocks making it near impossible to keep racking better scores.
Magic mode: While a nice addition to the game, this mode quickly becomes boring. In addition to suffering from the asymptotic difficulty there really isn't anything to keep players coming back to play this mode.
One for all: While this game has seen many ups and downs, this specific version cannot be one of its ups. While there are many pluses to the game, the minuses are serious drawbacks. In the long run this is a game that will probably be a time waster but never really played in all seriousness. If time wasting is all you need then this game does fill that need but if you are looking for something better, best look elsewhere.
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