Ah Tetris for the NES, what a classic. The idea for Tetris was created by Alexey Pajitnov in 1984 in the Soviet UNION. Yep, Russia. I thought the game was just based in Russia, but to know that it was created by a Russian? That makes perfect sense. Even on the game cart, it says "From Russia with Fun", which is a dead give-a-way of its nationality. A simple yet addictive game which appears pretty much everywhere as one of those "free downloads" you find on the app store or on iGoogle (or is it GoogleMe?). It's up there with Space Invaders and Pac-Man. In fact, Tetris seems to be one of the most popular puzzle games you just find everywhere. Lets have a look.

Tetris is a game without story, and for good reason. If you try and make a story based on Tetris, you'll most likely be seen as senile, possibly mad. So lets move on to the game itself. You are greeted by a silent and colourful title screen. I remember when I wanted to recreate this game as a challenge, but lacked the programming abilities and knowledge, so I then decided to make a battle scene which involved the tetris title screen and the walls of the letters used as Bo Staffs, yet I lacked the animation ability at the time, and I had a terrible animation software at the time (Scratch, if you can even call it an animation package....I guess you can't), so I gave up and played a different game. yeah, I was a little arrogant back then. Maybe I'll do it again one day, but I digress.

The menu screen offers two different types of game play, Game A and Game B. Game A is your standard Tetris game, where you place different shaped blocks in a huge rectangle so they tessellate perfectly to create a row. When you create this soul-called "row", that row disappears, and all the blocks move down the number of rows that disappeared in that move. Don't ask my why. Yet gravity doesn't effect stray bricks, they just float there, defying the laws of physics. Don't ask me how. The most amount of rows you can make disappear is four. This is called a "Tetris". The game records what blocks you have used during the game. Don't ask me how it helps.

The games speed is slow to begin with, yet as you create and disparate more and more rows, the games speed increases. And for some strange reason, every now and then, when you create a certain amount of rows, the games colour scheme changes. One moment it's the ordinary colour, the next the blocks are pink to purple, then they turn green to dark green, then they turn from navy blue to cyan, it just doesn't stop. Maybe it's to make people more interested in playing, but the game play is so engaging as it is, I don't think this is the point. I wonder what they were thinking when they thought of this as an idea to Tetris?

Game B is more of a challenge. You select your level, and then you select the difficulty of depth for your game. The higher the number you pick, the more rows of random blocks you get. The aim of this game mode is to make 25 rows disappear. At the end, your score will be totaled up based on what type of rows you made disappear (1 row at a time, 2 rows at a time etc.). Ok, this might not sound like a challenge, but it is if you want to score high in only 25 rows. Try it on speed 9 depth 6 for a frantic game. The music is....I'm not sure what to say. It's awkward, but it's the good type of awkward. You get three different types of music: A, B and C. B and C, in my option, don't fit well with the game. They are ok, but not what I expected in a puzzle game. It's not as catchy as the Game Boy Tetris.

And what about music type A? It's not as catchy as the Game Boy tetris, but there is something to it, something that matches it with Tetris almost perfectly. Something that makes it quite possibly the best puzzle music ever. When you start the game with this music, it somehow draws you in and pins you down to make you continue playing, with almost no hope of stopping. At first, it doesn't seem as powerful, you could stop playing whenever you want, yet the music keeps you playing, it traps and imprisons your mind and will power to force you to play. Now, I know what your thinking, "What else is new? It's Tetris...", which is pretty much it, but I feel this music makes the entire experience of Tetris overall more effective.

And I didn't really notice, but the main menus background is filled with Tetris blocks, all tessellated perfectly. Man, I would love to try that as a puzzle. I'm accurately impressed, it must have taken some time to achieve that. The overall effect of this is pretty soothing, really, but I don't know why. Another thing I'm impressed with this game is the demo. The demo isn't just when the computer makes a lame attemp on playing the game and fails hugely, but it accurately plays very impressively, with two Tetrises (is there a plural for Tetris?) and neat block placing, as if to say to the player "Look here mate! This is how it's done." It plays better than me.

Overall, I give this game a 9.3/10       I think I prefer this to the Game Boy version. Maybe because it's in colour, or the music in it. Sure, the Game Boy one is portable, but on Vizzed, the Game Boy one is as portable as the monitor you are reading this review on.....unless you own a laptop with wireless internet with a huge range, then the Game Boy version is indeed as portable as the Game Boy. But I digress. I think the NES version has a little more charm and it more appealing to the eye than the Game Boy version. Other than that and the music, it's pretty much the same game.

Hahaha. I gotta say that this is the most I have ever seen someone say about Tetris. You really picked off every last possible detail to make this review. Nobody can say that this is not thorough . Ah, so few games can get by with absolutely no story at all. Even games like Yoshi's Cookie try to put a little story in it. Tetris doesn't need it. One other thing I gotta say is that Tetris music is awesome. 

I like this adaptation of Tetris because you get points depending on how high your stack is too. You get more points if you drop a piece on a high stack than on a low stack. So you can go risky and get lots of points, or be safe but not get points so quickly.

Oh, and a Tetris piece is official called a "Tetromino." So two of them would be "Tetrominos."

Tetris. Honestly there's not much to say about it, you're just stacking blocks really.
NEver really got into Tetris because I suck so bad at it, but I really enjoyed your reading your review going into detail on like the simplest thing ever.

Someone70 : Really? I never knew that. And I didn't realize that Tetris blocks had names. Looks like there is more to this game than I thought.