POSTED 25/10/10


TETRIS PARTY DELUXE

Nintendo
Wii (also on DS)

Noooooooooooo! It’s happening again! We see square people – and square every-bloody-thing else for that matter.

When Senor Mendoza declared that his diabolical creation ‘Swank’ was ten times more addictive than marijuana – right before McBain defied scale and burst forth from an ice sculpture - Tetris just said, “meh”.

Well, it would have if it could talk.

Instead we like to imagine its genius creator, Alexey Pajitnov, letting forth the same monosyllabic expression of “whatever” with a wry grin, vodka-drenched breath and a gravelly Russian accent. He has the right – he was the originator, the instigator, the firestarter even of the… Most. Addictive. Game. Ever.

So, why yet another version, especially when there’s a more than serviceable WiiWare Tetris Party? Single player options, comrades. There’s the super-flying-fun-awesome original mix, several variants involving helping little dudes get to the top of the screen (how anti-Tetris is that?!), a remix with bombs, you-versus-Wii, a Picross-tinged thing where you drop bits to match a picture, a line-clearing race, insanity-inducing ‘Master Mode’ (no time to think!) and a woeful throwback to ’70s arcade ‘car’ games where you guide a Tetrimino through a tunnel.

Otherwise, all the multiplayer fun’s here too, whereby up to four players can compete in much the same events, locally or online.

Ultimately, the original Tetris is still the best – no matter how many balance board, Wii Speak and other peripherals you hurl at it (although Power Glove might have rocked). Multiplayer adds group spark – hence the ‘Party’ in the title - but to us Tetris feels best as a handheld, more personal experience (the DS version of this rocks, and also has mucho multiplayer support if it’s your thing).

All this try-hardingness, it’s silly. Tetris, you had us at zdravstvuy.

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