The first game I purchased for myself on the DS is Tetris. I have been enjoying the game and the new modes of play it offers. However, there is great fun in going back and playing Tetris in the original format: one screen, speed increases every ten lines, and it’s you vs the pieces till they win.
I will admit that the new tetris is not an exact copy of the original tetris released for the original game boy. A piece can be ‘flipped’ around when it hits the bottom much longer than the original. In fact, as long as you are flipping a piece, it doesn’t stick. You can flip a piece around until your thumb wears out. The same roughly applies for moving a piece left and right once it’s hit the stack. You don’t have much time before it sticks though and that time gets shorter the farther into the game you play. These changes might seem like a total re-work of the game dynamics… and you’d be right. They’ve also changed the game dynamic by giving you a ‘shadow’ of the current piece as it falls. As in you can see exactly where it will fall if you do a forced fast drop. (that’s one thing that hasn’t changed; if you know where the piece is going to go, do a force drop and you’re onto the next piece). There is one final change that makes all the difference: the speed of the game.
Level 0 is as slow as it ever was. Level 10 isn’t as fast as the original game boy’s Level 10… but it’s getting up there. But when you get to level 15+… the pieces don’t fall from the sky. They simply appear on the bottom of your screen. There is *no* time to move them as the fall. That’s why being able to continually flip and/or shift a piece on the bottom is crucial. Without that, you’d die in a heartbeat.
And the other thing: to ‘beat’ the classic tetris game, your goal is to get 200 lines. That’s certainly a change from the original tetris were beating the game was built around your score. I remember beating it with only 130-140 lines. Not so with the new version. It’s all the way to 200 or nothing.
Now, being the tetris fan that I am, I have played and played until I got those 200 lines. Christina thinks I’m insane. I tend to agree as I’m now playing on a newly opened option: unlimited line count. No stopping at 200 lines for me.
In fact, I think I proved my insanity today. I wouldn’t believe how many lines I got if I didn’t have a picture to prove it.
Although I have seen images of people with 999 lines. *that* scares me. And it’s my goal too.
Yeah that was a crazy game to watch.
That said…I’ve never once gotten past level 10, ever.
Go Chris Go!
Natrually, over the weekend I managed to get 914 lines. So close to the 999+ lines goal, yet so far. I do have a picture of that, but I’m waiting till I get the full on 999 lines to post another picture.
Hello, my name is Chris (hi, Chris) and I’m addicted to Tetris.
I am impressed. And I have my own photo of a particularly stunning game of Spider.
So whatever it is that makes one seek the ulitmate high on computer games – and then take a picture – whatever it is, it’s genetic and we both have it.
You’ll make your kid take piano lessons just for the finger dexterity and how much that improves future gaming performance. i can just see it ….
999 lines…. you are insane….. but then i don’t have much room to talk. lol if i had the game i would probably be doing the same thing… or trying to.