Improved and even more addictive (Tetris DX. (GB))

Member Name: defiler

Product:	Tetris DX. (GB)
Date:	14/09/01 (331 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple and easy to learn, Fun, Addictive

Disadvantages: If you already own the original Tetris for the Game Boy it might not be worth the money

Tetris. Just about everyone has played the game at one time, it is a game that even people who don't normally play computer games are willing to play. Tetris DX is an updated version of the Tetris that came out for the original Game Boy and tries to add new features without changing the classic feel of the game. The game can only be played on the Game Boy Colour or any other version of the Game Boy that allows you to play Game Boy Colour games (such as the Game Boy Advance).

--What is Tetris?--
Shapes made up of blocks fall from the top of the screen to the bottom, there are 7 different shapes each one is always made up of 4 blocks and will vary from a straight line to a square with many other shapes in-between. You can turn these shapes around in 90-degree angles and have to line up a full line of blocks in order to remove it from the screen. If you do not line up a full line of blocks then nothing is deleted and the screen gradually fills up with more and more blocks, if you are unable to remove any of these before they reach the top of the screen the game is over.

The game is very simple and easy to learn but also very addictive and somehow makes you want to keep playing, there is something to it that keeps drawing you back to try and beat your high score. You might not play it for hours on end but it is the sort of game that is very easy to pick up and play.

--A history--
While Tetris was seen many times before the original Game Boy game it is here that it really seemed to gain huge popularity, it is the perfect game to play on a portable machine and appeals to just about everyone, it became a must have game for the Game Boy. This isn't to say the game wasn't popular before this version, the game sold in huge numbers on home computers well before the Game Boy version was released. The main reason it became so popular on the Game Boy however was probably because it was a pack-in with the Game Boy, anyone who
bought a Game Boy when it came out would have received Tetris with it and as such it meant that people were playing the game that might never have done so otherwise. In total about 30 million Tetris cartridges were made for the Game Boy.

In June 1987 Tetris was created on an Electronica 60 at the Moscow Academy of Science's Computer Centre by Alexey Pazhitnov who was inspired to create the game by a Pentominoes game he had bought earlier. Soon after it was ported to the IMB PC and started spreading around Moscow. After this is was started to be ported to other computers and it was at this time that legal problems started to occur. The original creator of the game made very little money from it and in fact didn't start to even receive royalties until 1996.

The Game Boy version was released at the same time as the NES version was released in the US, both these versions of the game were immensely popular upon their release in July 1989.

The games name comes from tetra which is the great word for four and refers to the fact that the shapes used in the game are all made up of four blocks as well as that clearing four lines at once is known as Tetris.

Since its release Tetris has been seen in many shapes and forms on just about every single computer and console ever released. Many people tried to make improvements on the original game, adding new shapes for the blocks or making small changes to the way the game was played but few succeeded and the original game remains the most playable among most people.

This is just a brief history of the game with many details missed out, for more information the following web pages are all good guides:
http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/special/tetrishist. html
http://www.tetris.com/history.html
http://vadim.www.media.mit.edu/Tetris.htm

--What improvements are made in Tetris DX?--
To start with it adds colour and backgrounds to the game, the game is certainly
more visually appealing than the original game but keeps everything simple, the game is not played for impressive graphics but instead for the great playability of the game itself. The one problem with this improvement is that occasionally you can get a background that is a similar colour to some of the shapes making it slightly more difficulty to tell where everything is on the screen.

Another nice change to the game is the fact that it can be saved, if you are playing the game and need to stop playing for some reason you can simply pause the game and turn the Game Boy off, when you turn it on again you will be asked if you want to continue from where you turned it off.

An "improvement" on the music has been made too, although personally I dislike this change. The original music of Tetris was great, simple yet somehow prevented from being too repetitive. The new music added is not like the original and gets annoying after a short while.

A small animation is shown at the end of various modes and is meant to represent how you did, unfortunately these don't appear to be skippable and unless you watch them your score won't be recorded. They may be a nice touch the first few times you see them but after this you will wish they could be skipped.

More details on how you have done while playing are also stored, as well as the high scores for every mode of the game you also get other details saved such as a power rating, the total number of lines you have completed and the % of the time you cleared 2, 3 or 4 lines at once. These details are saved for each individual player and you can enter details of up to 3 players meaning that many people can play the game and have their own individual statistics and high scores saved, there is also a guest feature which doesn't save any information.

Other than these and a few other little changes the main things added to the game are the modes of playing it.
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-Marathon
The main game of the original Game Boy Tetris is now called "Marathon" and remains almost identical to the original, with only things like colour added to it. I was very glad that they kept the original game as it was as the original form is also the best, if any major changes had been made to it I probably wouldn't have bought this game.

This game is played by the basic rules, you simply have to complete lines and stay "alive" as long as possible. For every 10 lines you complete the level (speed) of the game increases and continues to increase until it is very fast (Level 30 seems to be the maximum). At faster speeds you have less time to plan what you will do and so can make mistakes much easier, once a few mistakes are made at a very fast speed the game is often lost when at lower levels you would have recovered normally.

You can adjust the level (speed) you start at, you can choose to start between levels 0 and 9. If you don't start at level 0 then the level of the game won't increase until after it would normally, for example if you start at level 1 then it will take 20 lines to increase to level 2 just as it would have done if you had started at level 0.

A high score is given depending on the number of lines you cleared and the way you cleared them. If you clear 3 lines at once it will score more than clearing a single line for example. The main appeal of this mode is to beat previous high scores and it can become very addictive to try and do this.

-Ultra
This is played just as the Marathon mode except that you only play for 3 minutes, after this amount of time the game ends whether you have "died" or not. As with the Marathon mode you can choose what level you start on. This mode is a nice feature but not really that amazing, you could easily have played this game yourself on the original Game Boy version of Tetris by simply timing yourself for 3 minu
tes and stopping then. It does however have some appeal to it as you try to get the highest score you possibly can in such a short time, making you have to think and act faster than you normally would.

-40 Lines
This is like the "B Game" on the original version of Tetris for the Game Boy. The only difference is that rather than having to complete 25 lines you have to complete 40 lines. The idea is to complete these 40 lines in as quick a time as possible.

As well as being able to select your level you can also select the height (number of unclearable lines at the bottom of the screen) you start at. As with the "Ultra" mode this version is good for a while but has limited appeal and you probably won't spend a lot of time on it after you have played it a few times.

-Vs Com/2 Player Mode
A version of the multiplayer game has been made available to people playing the game on their own, instead of playing against a human opponent you instead face the computer. This is probably the best new mode of this game, the multiplayer mode of the game is faster and more challenging than the single player and being able to play it even without another human opponent is a great new feature. The AI in the Vs Com. mode is also quite good and should provide a challenge to most people, playing a human player through linking to another Game Boy is still a much better experience however.

The idea of this mode is that you play against an opponent and you must be the last remaining player. If you clear 2 lines or more at once then you send an incomplete line to the bottom of the other players screen, this incomplete line can be removed as any other line could be but may provide quite a few problems and not be able to be removed straight away. In order to win a round you need to win 3 games, if your opponent wins 3 games before you then they win instead.

You can also adjust things so that one player has an
advantage over another, you can choose what level (speed) you start on, so if one player is better than another you would start them on a higher level so that they find it harder.

This mode of the game is faster than the Marathon mode, you are constantly having to struggle not only to remove your normal blocks but also the ones your opponent has sent to you. While a Marathon game may run into hundreds of completed lines this version rarely goes beyond one hundred making it much quicker to play.

--Conclusion--
Because Tetris DX is an improved version of the original game which keeps all the features of the original game if you don't own Tetris but want a version of it for the Game Boy Colour this is probably the best choice for you. If on the other hand you already own Tetris and are thinking of buying this for the new features it might not be worth paying for, while many of the things added are nice features you will probably find yourself playing the marathon mode of the game more than any other, the mode that is nearly identical to the original Tetris. It really depends on your view of the new features as to whether it is worth your money or not as well as how much the game costs when you see it for sale, brand new and at full price (£24.99) I'd say that no it isn't worth the money, reduced or second-hand and I'd say that yes it is.

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