Tetris: Why I Love It / Why the Version Matters
I've been playing this for 20 years?
When I was a young boy growing up in a small town, it was rare for us to get new games for our NES. When the system was new and shiny, my older brothers would pool their money and pick up some great release, like “The Legend of Zelda”, or sometimes a big stinker, like “Tag Team Wrestling” (this was back when we were all really into the WWF).
Then the years passed, and my older brothers started to lose interest in gaming. I ended up renting games pretty frequently (back when it was only $1 for the whole weekend), but owning them was a rare occurrence.
Along came Tetris. It was hyped in magazines and TV ads for months,even making it’s way onto some day time talk show, where they were going on about it being a game that is actually good for kids to play. It promoted quick thinking, hand-eye coordination, etc. Thanks, Nintendo fluff piece! I now had ammo.
In our household, we only got games with our own money, but this was one I had to take a chance on. I actually talked to my parents about gaming, in depth, for the first time. I explained how the game worked and why it was actually a good thing to play, but I never actually came out and asked for it. That was more likely to kill the conversation than subtly encourage a purchase. Much to my surprise, our parents eventually did buy us the game, making sure we knew it was for all of us kids, and we had to take turns.
So we played. A lot. Even my dad and my sister. This marks the first of two times I ever remember my dad playing a video game.
I played until falling blocks were all I could see. Even after putting down the controller, the falling would not stop. It would keep me up at night, the game running in front of my eyes while I lay in bed. I played until I beat the high score for lines of all of my siblings. I played type B on the hardest setting, just to show them I could. I played until, one day when I was home sick from school, I beat it. They didn’t believe me.
Then, as was inevitable, my interest finally shifted to another game.
Years passed and I hadn’t thought much about it. Even when we finally bought a Gameboy, it was the version that came with The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, and I was glad it no longer came with Tetris. I had already played it.
Eventually we did get a copy of the Gameboy Tetris, when my sister borrowed the system for a road trip and bought herself a copy. Once she returned the console, she let us add this new copy of Tetris to our games library. By this point, we no longer had an NES, as it had died on us (we blame a rented copy of Mappy), and one of our brothers sold all our games to a friend (even the ones that weren’t his, which were most of them). This re-awakened my love. Car trips became Tetris-fests. Eventually, I beat my all time high score in number of lines cleared.
Later, in High School, a classmate overheard my friends and I talking about Tetris, and asked if we were any good at it. My high score was 198 lines (the average player I’ve met has trouble clearing 100 lines) her response was that she easily was getting over 300 lines every time she played, so I clearly wasn’t very good at it. Needless to say, we were floored.
As it turned out she was playing some free version of the game available through the Microsoft website, where it could track your high scores and line count. I checked it out, sad to find it was the easiest version of the game I had ever played. This was the first time I realized, Tetris is not always real Tetris.
There is a lot more to the game than just random falling blocks. There is some careful programming going on in the background, keeping the randomization from skewing the number of pieces too far one direction or the other. Carefully increasing the speed every ten lines. Making the sliding of blocks work well, but not break the game by letting you infinitely spin pieces (which is the official game mechanic in modern versions).
Upon further research, I found that the Gameboy version, the one in which I reached my personal highest line count, is even harder than the NES version. The width has been reduced by 2 spaces to accomodate the smaller screen.
My opinion was then and is now solidified. If you are a serious Tetris player, do yourself a favor and play the real versions. I have since played it on several other consoles and versions, several of which are quite enjoyable in their own right (Tetris DS being a light and fun version of the game). But, for the really hardcore puzzle game player, either the NES or Gameboy version are by far the stand out editions.
Tags: Editorials, Game Boy, NES, Tetris
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:I’m curious how the version in Tetris & Dr. Mario for SNES stacks up. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to play a serious game of single player Tetris on it, just multiplayer.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Shaolinjesus says:I blame the tetris I managed to get on my graphing calculator, for ruining my chemistry grade in High school.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 am
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:I have the SNES Tetris & Dr. Mario, but I’m the same way. I’ve pretty much only played it multi-player. I will have to do a comparison and do a follow up mini-article.
I’m actually glad I didn’t have games on my calculator. I would never have finished my work.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Feast of the panda says:How about the new sim-city tetris game?
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Mike says:Wait, you grew up in “small town America”? Not sure if you were joking, but Snohomish had TWO 7-11′s way back in 1985, AND a bowling alley, AND an airport. And with regards to Tetris, I was always fond the pre-handhand version available on the Apple II back in ’85. I think we had that game in my 5th grade class’ computer.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:38 am
MrColinP says:Have you ever seen the documentary about the conception of Tetris? Clip:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/791712/tetris_from_russia_with_love_documentary/
It’s intense. International politics come into play!
I think it’s also worth noting, and I could be wrong, that Tetris was a big early crossover game. My Mom played it more than the one time your Dad did- she couldn’t put it down. Although, maybe this happened more frequently back then, with Pong and whatnot.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:47 am
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:You say “airport” as if it were big enough for something larger than a bi-plane to take off from. The 2007 population of Snohomish, which saw rapid growth in the late 90′s was only at 8,841.
And this is Snohomish today – http://www.travelblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/photos_pre07/dougdo/seavan_snohomish_wa.jpg
I think I’m justified in my assessment of it being a small town.
And I haven’t seen the documentary yet, but now I plan to.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:i have that documentary. Its good, we should watch it sometime
January 25th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:Is that the one where you find out the creator of Tetris also calculated nuclear winter?
I have made a compromise in the article and changed it from “small town America” to “in a small town”. I hope this ends any discussion on the matter, because any further comments along these lines will not be posted.
Thanks.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Shaolinjesus says:Tetris is like pizza even when its a bad version its still pretty good.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:yes, his list of achievements is: Calculated Nuclear Winter and Invented Tetris. Also you get to hear him say puzzles a lot but it always sounds like “Pawzuls”
March 24th, 2011 at 5:01 am
The Game Boy Games I Crave for 3DS Virtual Console – WingDamage.com says:[...] You think that infinite spinning garbage is the real deal? Throw every other version of Tetris right in the garbage, for your own sake. If you aren’t playing the Game Boy or NES version, you aren’t really playing Tetris. [...]