Classic Video Game Review: Tetris

When people talk about the Game Boy one game pops into everyone's mind almost immediately, "Tetris". Tetris burst onto the video game scene back in the late 1980's as a pack in title for the original Game Boy and it was seen as a game that would appeal to everyone, young and old, male and female. What few at the time knew was that the game would reinvent the puzzle game genre and help to create not only a franchise but a complete monster that has been cloned, changed and been the basis for a huge number of games in the past 25 years.

Originally the game was created by a Russian computer engineer called Alexey Pajitnov who was working for a company founded by the USSR government. Amazingly Pajitnov failed to receive a penny in royalties for his idea until the mid 1990's due to the way the company he was working for was funded.

The Tetris concept had been seen in games in the mid 1980's in Europe though it wasn't until 1988 that it really broke into the United States thanks to the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It was at the CES that Dutch born video game designer Henk Rogers saw the game and it was after seeing the game that he traveled to Russia to attempt to secure the international rights to the game. Although Rogers was just 1 party in a 3 party race he managed to secure the rights and the rest, as they say, is history as the game went from strength to strength, but what is it about Tetris that has made it such a sensation?

Tetris at it's heart is a very engaging puzzle game, but one that doesn't rely on being overtly complex, in fact it's fair to say that Tetris' real charm is in it's complete simplicity. As we all know, the idea of the game is to use falling blocks to make complete lines across the screen to score points. There is nothing difficult to understand about the idea and that is probably the heart of the game, it's simple.

Whilst some people reading this might be wondering how such a simple game has managed to take over the world like Tetris has the answer is obvious, it's able to to be played by anyone and it's also able to hook you. It's a game where you can attempt to set personal records in terms of lines cleared or points score, meaning you will come back, but it's also a game that makes your blood rush and your heart speed up as you attempt to survive when the screen is filling up with blocks.

Whilst many games have tried to use the idea of falling blocks to recreate the Tetris feel they've all fallen short. Whether it was the Sega game "Columns", Nintendo's own "Dr Mario" or Tetris' spiritual brother "Hatris" nothing has managed to come close to the magic of Tetris. It's somewhat hard to pin point quite why nothing can match Tetris, though a lot of it comes down to the Tetris package. Not only was the original Tetris a revolution in gaming that survives wonderfully all these years on but it was wonderfully presented, it was clear and sharp even in the Game Boy's monochrome display, the music was catchy and high tempo and maybe most of all it was a timeless game. Due to it's simplicity and the way it's shown it simply cannot age. If you compare it to many other games from the 1980's (think Donkey Kong or Pitfall) they simply look like games from the 1980's whilst Tetris looks as gorgeous as it ever did.

Tetris is probably as perfect of a puzzle game as one can get and it's shown in all the ways it's been done. From the original Tetris on the Game Boy to the numerous remakes it's always going to appeal to people and people will always find themselves hooked.