The first perfect video game. Alexey Pajitnov created a masterpiece with Tetris by harnessing the power of the video game format to create an endless puzzle loop that is simple for anyone to pickup but keeps you coming back for that sweet sweet dopamine hit when your clear a line. It's just brilliant and deserves to sit in the pantheon of humanity's greatest games with the likes of Chess and Go.
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Y'know, I'm not quite sure how I should rate and review this game. If I compare this to the many other versions of Tetris out there, it is quite obvious that this is one of the worst ones. From the horrible, ear-piercing beeps after every input you make on the keyboard, to the oh so slow updating of the pieces, to the pitiful amount of inputs the computer recognizes per second, it is not good by todays standards. I mean, to put in perspective, I played one game of Tetris for 37 minutes straight, and I only got to 150 lines. It's really slow.
However. This is in no way a fault of Alexey Pajitnov, but rather the computer that he programmed this on, that being the Electronika 60. Because of this, I won't dock any stars by those admitted negatives I have listed, because quite frankly, they were simply outside of his control. We have to remember the constraints in which he was set in while programming Tetris, and make an effort not to negatively rate this first version due to these constraints.
That being said, for the first version of Tetris, it's pretty much already all here. You have the same matrix dimensions that we still have today, the same tetriminoes, the speed increasing after 10 lines, the next box, all of it. The only things really missing are the fact the next box only shows one piece, there's only one rotation button, and technically the 7-bag next piece system. I won't count that last one however, because quite frankly, while 7-bag is nice, it's definitely not as sorely needed as the other two.
Everything fundamentally works almost identically to the uber-popular NES and GameBoy versions of Tetris (besides the GameBoy versions broken RNG of course) besides the scoring system and less speed levels, and that really is a testament to just how simple but elegant this game is. The only possible complaint I could have besides things that are due to the computer itself, not the program, is that there weren't enough speed levels, and I felt like it capped at too slow of a speed, and that I could really play infinitely long if I wished to.
That gradual increase of speed levels up to the point it's near impossible to play really is basically a staple of Tetris in my opinion, and it's pretty much at it's best in the NES version. Once you reach level 29, the game has what's been dubbed a "kill-screen", in which the blocks move so fast, that the usual method of play is literally impossible once you get to this point. Now, in the over 30 years since the game has released, there have been methods discovered by the NES Tetris community to actually tap fast enough to competently play in the kill-screen, but that's something to be further discussed a different time. The point is, that cap where the game really forces you to stop, is a truly great feature of NES Tetris, and most other Tetris games.
Granted, however, the main reason this kill-screen is actually a driving factor to just keep playing and getting better, and by extension the reason one is driven to actually try and complete Tetrises instead of many, many singles and doubles, is the scoring system, which is seemingly absent in this version of the game.
I previously had a full two paragraphs talking about the importance of the scoring system, and how it is fundamentally required in order to give Tetris any sort of replayability. I then realized that once you top out, the Russian that's added to the screen afterward is actually asking me to put my name, and then it will show you your full score. I did not know this until after I had already closed my window of 150 lines, so I guess we'll never know what score I got.
I also said in the now-deleted two paragraphs how because the speed feels so slow as a cap, and how the score is absent, I cannot put this as a perfect rating. I took a half-star off for both of those features. Now that I know of the score's non-absence, I feel okay with adding a half-star, bringing this up to 4.5.
I would also like to mention how when speaking of how slow this game is, I would learn that at least part of it was simply due to the simulator I was using, and not totally to the fault of the computer itself, when playing on original hardware. I do still believe though, that the speed is a bit slow on original hardware, and I do think I'll stand by those statements, just not to the same exaggerated tone I may or may not have portrayed earlier in this review.
I don't think it's perfect, but I should say as a disclaimer that it's not like it was meant to be. After all, this version was never put out to the public, and was merely created purely for Alexey's own enjoyment. I don't think he could've known the influence that Tetris would have on the video game market when he was first programming it, and I definitely don't think he was aiming to make the perfect video game while making it. That being said, the fact this game is still so incredibly popular, addicting, and true-to-form so many years later, cannot be understated.
However. This is in no way a fault of Alexey Pajitnov, but rather the computer that he programmed this on, that being the Electronika 60. Because of this, I won't dock any stars by those admitted negatives I have listed, because quite frankly, they were simply outside of his control. We have to remember the constraints in which he was set in while programming Tetris, and make an effort not to negatively rate this first version due to these constraints.
That being said, for the first version of Tetris, it's pretty much already all here. You have the same matrix dimensions that we still have today, the same tetriminoes, the speed increasing after 10 lines, the next box, all of it. The only things really missing are the fact the next box only shows one piece, there's only one rotation button, and technically the 7-bag next piece system. I won't count that last one however, because quite frankly, while 7-bag is nice, it's definitely not as sorely needed as the other two.
Everything fundamentally works almost identically to the uber-popular NES and GameBoy versions of Tetris (besides the GameBoy versions broken RNG of course) besides the scoring system and less speed levels, and that really is a testament to just how simple but elegant this game is. The only possible complaint I could have besides things that are due to the computer itself, not the program, is that there weren't enough speed levels, and I felt like it capped at too slow of a speed, and that I could really play infinitely long if I wished to.
That gradual increase of speed levels up to the point it's near impossible to play really is basically a staple of Tetris in my opinion, and it's pretty much at it's best in the NES version. Once you reach level 29, the game has what's been dubbed a "kill-screen", in which the blocks move so fast, that the usual method of play is literally impossible once you get to this point. Now, in the over 30 years since the game has released, there have been methods discovered by the NES Tetris community to actually tap fast enough to competently play in the kill-screen, but that's something to be further discussed a different time. The point is, that cap where the game really forces you to stop, is a truly great feature of NES Tetris, and most other Tetris games.
Granted, however, the main reason this kill-screen is actually a driving factor to just keep playing and getting better, and by extension the reason one is driven to actually try and complete Tetrises instead of many, many singles and doubles, is the scoring system, which is seemingly absent in this version of the game.
I previously had a full two paragraphs talking about the importance of the scoring system, and how it is fundamentally required in order to give Tetris any sort of replayability. I then realized that once you top out, the Russian that's added to the screen afterward is actually asking me to put my name, and then it will show you your full score. I did not know this until after I had already closed my window of 150 lines, so I guess we'll never know what score I got.
I also said in the now-deleted two paragraphs how because the speed feels so slow as a cap, and how the score is absent, I cannot put this as a perfect rating. I took a half-star off for both of those features. Now that I know of the score's non-absence, I feel okay with adding a half-star, bringing this up to 4.5.
I would also like to mention how when speaking of how slow this game is, I would learn that at least part of it was simply due to the simulator I was using, and not totally to the fault of the computer itself, when playing on original hardware. I do still believe though, that the speed is a bit slow on original hardware, and I do think I'll stand by those statements, just not to the same exaggerated tone I may or may not have portrayed earlier in this review.
I don't think it's perfect, but I should say as a disclaimer that it's not like it was meant to be. After all, this version was never put out to the public, and was merely created purely for Alexey's own enjoyment. I don't think he could've known the influence that Tetris would have on the video game market when he was first programming it, and I definitely don't think he was aiming to make the perfect video game while making it. That being said, the fact this game is still so incredibly popular, addicting, and true-to-form so many years later, cannot be understated.
Inventor of the real-time score-attack puzzle game (as far as I know) and when accounting for its million quadrillion versions, probably still its king. To be honest, that's not something I can confirm. I respect these plenty, but on the cosmic scale of all video games, this is unavoidably the genre by which I am the least compelled. Is Tetris better than Puyo Puyo? I have no idea. What I do know is that Tetris matters, and that it's good.
A game so immaculately designed it doesn't feel like it was made by humans. A monolith of abstract design for future game designers to look upon and weep.
PERSONAL BEST: 26,430pts
(Based on the port by Github developer Ytiurin, which amazingly recreates the Electronika 60 release)
https://ytiurin.github.io/tetris/
One of the only perfect games in existence since it's just a simple puzzle environment with a closed system. Tetris is beautiful philosophically and ideologically. The only foe you have here is your own lack of imagination and its almost zen-like quality makes it a standard for hardcore and wide audiences alike. Who would've thought Soviet's best export of the feared 1984 would be a video game to resonate with so many generations? I remember my parents not liking video games, but even they liked Tetris, and they were born in the mid-50s. A big reason for its popularity here in Serbia are the small LCD Chinese handheld platforms whose only purpose was to play Tetris and similar block-based arcade games.
My favourite versions to play are this Electronika emulation, the DOS one, and the NES one which has a magical chiptune rendition of The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. It would keep me up for nights where I couldn't sleep. I didn't spend my time with the Game Boy version, sadly.
(Glitchwave project #011)
(Based on the port by Github developer Ytiurin, which amazingly recreates the Electronika 60 release)
https://ytiurin.github.io/tetris/
One of the only perfect games in existence since it's just a simple puzzle environment with a closed system. Tetris is beautiful philosophically and ideologically. The only foe you have here is your own lack of imagination and its almost zen-like quality makes it a standard for hardcore and wide audiences alike. Who would've thought Soviet's best export of the feared 1984 would be a video game to resonate with so many generations? I remember my parents not liking video games, but even they liked Tetris, and they were born in the mid-50s. A big reason for its popularity here in Serbia are the small LCD Chinese handheld platforms whose only purpose was to play Tetris and similar block-based arcade games.
My favourite versions to play are this Electronika emulation, the DOS one, and the NES one which has a magical chiptune rendition of The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. It would keep me up for nights where I couldn't sleep. I didn't spend my time with the Game Boy version, sadly.
(Glitchwave project #011)
Had no clue you could hard drop till i looked in the options menu. would've been nice to know
This version is now playable on this website thanks to the pretty good movie released this year.
https://tetris.com/tetris-e60/
One of the most important games ever made.
https://tetris.com/tetris-e60/
One of the most important games ever made.
You know this game is good when Miyamoto himself requested it as the launch title for the Game Boy instead of Super Mario Land.
just finished watching the new tetris biopic on [streaming site] and there's probably a lot to be said about this movie's angle on various things... which i only want to touch on briefly. specifically, i don't think this is too simple a tale of capitalism triumphing over communism: it does a fair enough job of illustrating failure and greed on both sides of this specific conflict, thugs and liars, howard lincoln calling atari "those motherfuckers," etc. it is perhaps telling that henk rogers, the international entrepreneur (and developer of the first turn-based rpg released in japan) who had a hand in the worldwide emergence of tetris — specifically its relationship to the game boy — is presented here as the central protagonist, and even alexey's personal american jesus. a man who risked everything for the absolute jackpot that this game could be. i mean, uh, for pajitnov and his brilliant game. yes.
still, the story of tetris itself is a compelling one. a friend said in irc, wondering if someone else would have eventually made the game if pajitnov hadn't, "it seems like a sort of inevitable game." i agree: there is a sort of visually mathematical quintessence to it — like pythagoras's triangles. like, i'm a total idiot who hates math and even i can see that. everyone can; it's just that good. a perfect game most of us play quite imperfectly and it always feels good from the first tetromino. it's like a key that unlocks something as you play it. something like love or truth, maybe.
still, the story of tetris itself is a compelling one. a friend said in irc, wondering if someone else would have eventually made the game if pajitnov hadn't, "it seems like a sort of inevitable game." i agree: there is a sort of visually mathematical quintessence to it — like pythagoras's triangles. like, i'm a total idiot who hates math and even i can see that. everyone can; it's just that good. a perfect game most of us play quite imperfectly and it always feels good from the first tetromino. it's like a key that unlocks something as you play it. something like love or truth, maybe.
It's rather telling that this ur-Tetris operates with the same mechanical elegance as its progeny. I find the consideration of Tetris - and indeed, any game - as a 'perfect game' to be trite, but from the outset Alexey Pajitnov demonstrated with aplomb that Tetris is a perfect idea. The reiteration of gameplay systems necessarily precludes Tetris from an actualised perfection -- who can judge which of its 322+ official releases is 'definitive'?
Yet, with hundreds of versions each expanding on that which came before, one would expect the very first title to be lacking most of what allowed Tetris to be a success. The Electronika 60 release is a monochrome textscape without even the barest flourishes of the Game Boy version. The shrill piezoelectric beeper's pathetic tones are an auditory agony; the ubiquitous whine of the cathode ray tube a tinnital torment. There is no bag randomiser. There is no hold. Rotation is clockwise-only. No T-spins, no back-to-backs, no combos, no garbage, no ghost. One next piece is shown. Surprisingly the hard drop is present, despite its omission from subsequent versions until 2001's Tetris Worlds.
It all matters not. In a cacophony of noise befitting a Ryoji Ikeda installation, I am dealt five Z-pieces in a row. The inconsistent speed increments befuddle me, catching me off-guard. How characters are rendered makes it difficult to consider my board's layout. I am in love. This scant realisation feels pure. I am entranced by it. It is all I have ever needed and wanted.
Yet, with hundreds of versions each expanding on that which came before, one would expect the very first title to be lacking most of what allowed Tetris to be a success. The Electronika 60 release is a monochrome textscape without even the barest flourishes of the Game Boy version. The shrill piezoelectric beeper's pathetic tones are an auditory agony; the ubiquitous whine of the cathode ray tube a tinnital torment. There is no bag randomiser. There is no hold. Rotation is clockwise-only. No T-spins, no back-to-backs, no combos, no garbage, no ghost. One next piece is shown. Surprisingly the hard drop is present, despite its omission from subsequent versions until 2001's Tetris Worlds.
It all matters not. In a cacophony of noise befitting a Ryoji Ikeda installation, I am dealt five Z-pieces in a row. The inconsistent speed increments befuddle me, catching me off-guard. How characters are rendered makes it difficult to consider my board's layout. I am in love. This scant realisation feels pure. I am entranced by it. It is all I have ever needed and wanted.