DATE: February 19th

LINES: 203

DIFFICULTY: Moderate

THOUGHTS: Bought this for £2 at a pawn shop in 1998 and still have my copy today, making this poster child of the inverse spend playtime rule. Quite tricky to get back on the horse if you've spent a lot of time with Guideline Tetris ruleset, but no holding, wall-kicking or 6-queuing does lead to far greater intellectual stimulation and a lot less time spent asleep at the wheel. The rocketship remains the most satisfying end a Tetris game has had.

DATE: February 19th

LINES: 225

DIFFICULTY: Low-Moderate

THOUGHTS: They send a bottle of vodka into space in this one. This is Classic Tetris on the precipice of Guideline Tetris., essentially a Mandela Effect alternate timeline version of the original Game Boy Tetris that has a bunch of small QoL tweaks that you seem to remember were already in Tetris but in fact were not in Tetris for the Game Boy and were only in Tetris DX for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. The little animations when the blocks land are satisfying and cute and I think more Tetris games should imbue the blocks with their own little personalities and shit. The adaptive music is very impressive for a Game Boy game and does an emotive job of showing far the Game Boy came as a console between 1988 and 1998, befitting of Tetris's temporal status as a game about the passage of time and technology.

DATE: February 19th
LINES: 315
DIFFICULTY: Easy
THOUGHTS: Genuine travesty that THQ stopped this game from escaping Japan. Tetris Advance is one of the first Guideline Tetris games, and it plays like a dream - quite literally, because the very generous ruleset stands it in a stark, forgiving contrast to its GB and GBC counterparts to such an extent that you may fall asleep. I like that there is a little orchestra playing on the left-hand-side of the screen - game developers should have taken advantage of widescreen in this way more often. Also I'm unsure if this is intentional or not, but the 'blocked' noise uses the same percussion as the soundtrack, which gives difficult moments a rapid, desperate tempo, enhancing the rare instances of panic-sanguine in this otherwise pleasant game.

DATE: February 20th

LINES: 163

DIFFICULTY: Low-moderate

THOUGHTS: Ostensibly the most villainous Tetris game of all time, given the game's "Soviet Mind Game" marketing strategy and the copyright battle around the game's Western distribution rights. However, the game itself is actually very fun by virtue of its unique presentation and ideas. I like that starting up a new round shows you the names of everyone who worked on the game - that's nice! The co-op mode is similarly nice, and it's quite sad that it was sorta forgotten until 2021's Tetris Effect: Connected. There is probably some ironic observation to be made here about the ways that Tetris has transformed from a Soviet Mind Game to an all-consuming Capitalist Mind Game - maybe the movie will discuss this.

DATE: February 24th
LINES: 153
DIFFICULTY: Hard
THOUGHTS: Feels harder than Game Boy Tetris for reasons I can't explain why. The changing colour palettes are a total delight, especially when they lean into the neon hues. Having to tap out faster movement in the high levels gives this the feel of Tekken's wavedashing at times.

DATE: February 24th
LINES: 162
DIFFICULTY: Moderate-Hard
THOUGHTS: Super Tetris All-Stars

DATE: February 24th
LINES: 185
DIFFICULTY: Moderate
THOUGHTS: Incredibly strange gamefeel, but one of the first documented cases of Techno and Tetris coming together. Interesting to see the Kremlin, St Paul's and Red Square in a Tetris made late into the 1990s.