As much fun as you can have playing with yourself (Tetris (PC))

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Tetris (PC)
Date:	12/08/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: As addictive as heroin and as fun as you can have playing with yourself, health benefits

Disadvantages: Can make you rather anti-social

In today's society we abuse superlatives, we call even the most ordinary of albums "Classics" and with some video games actually selling as part of a "Classics" range it's no wonder the word has been devauled in recent times. Pop albums are described on a regular basis as being a classic before their release, not after they've gone on to long lasting appeal or broken down the barriers of something. Albums like "Thriller" which set a bench mark for all to follow are well deserving of the title of classic but many more recent albums aren't. The same is the case in the video game world, of course some games are all time classics like "Mario Brothers", "Sonic The Hedgehog" and "Goldeneye", despite their age they either raised the bar, or were such an enjoyment to play that their longevity is still being felt today.

Well possible the biggest gaming "Classic" is Tetris, the puzzle game that helped set the stage for the Game Boy to be the biggest selling console of all time and helped while away hours in the car or train back in the day of black and white mobile gaming. What is little known is that the creator received little to no money for it, Alexey Pajitnov was living under soviet rules and the project become property of the USSR and communism. This therefore makes it one of the most profitable items ever to have come from some one who didn't earn from their invention, much like the hinge (the biggest selling none copyright item in the world apparently).

The game is based on controlling random Tetrominoes (shapes made of 4 pieces) to create lines horizontally across the screen. With pieces falling from the top of the screen, the players aim is to last as long as possible before the screen fills to the top, with each line they successfully make being deleted and awarded points for completing. A simple concept but one that is oddly addictive, a challenge in setting the highest scores you possibly can and advancing on to the next level (in which the game becomes progressively faster). A game play that is simple and even quite intuitive on the Game boy (left and right control the falling shapes, the A and B buttons rotate them) lead this to selling over 70,000,000 copies and being proclaimed the Greatest Video Game Ever by Electronic Gaming Monthly's and the second best by IGN. Not bad going for a load of old blocks.

What the gamer experiences is a challenge, but a fun one, something many similar games seemed unable to match until the Bust-A-Move series on the PSX finally caught the imagination in the home entertainment systems. Games such as Columns on the Sega Mega Drive (amongst other consoles) just lacked that magic, the ingredient of fun that Tetris managed to have. Though what Tetris also managed was to have a drug like addictive quality to it, in car journey's that would often see parents bugged by an impatient child asking "are we there yet?" was turned into "mum can we stop at a garage for more battery's? My Game Boy has just died". Car journeys for us become became littered with simple 8 bit music that became almost as addictive as the game it's self, so for the driver it could be a nightmare and often lead to the radio being turned up. This was often the best a young boy could have to play with himself back in the days before wifi enabled portable internet gaming and MP3 players.

In more recent years the Tetris Company has been set up (1996) so that the creator has managed to earn something out of it, though sadly for him the years of the Game boy are long gone, and with more complex games coming out on the PSP and DS with Tetris clones seemingly being given away as mobile games or games on music players, the ship may well have sailed. The company how ever do fiercely defend the Tetris name from obvious products that bare a similar name.

The game has been studied for neurological effects and several have been found including one where it is said to make the brain more efficient as players develop the need to use less glucose the more they play it. The most infamous one however is "The Tetris Effect" in which players see the shapes falling front of their face with out actually playing the game at the time, a rather worrying if only short side effect of the game. The Tetris effect could well be seen as the Tetris players version of Dartitis or the "Yips" in golf. Some people end up massively addicted to the game, like my EX gilfriend who pretty much ignored everyone to play a version of the game, despite not liking playing games on the whole.

In more recent versions of the game colour has been added to what was originally a monotone environment, with new releases and changes to the system always trying to tweak it to make the game perfect none are as effective and addictive at being playable as the original. A game that with out a doubt helped to the huge global success of the Game Boy and of Nintendo as a company and is very fairly entitled "A classic", don't get this mixed up with the over hyped nonsense of games like Halo.

Summary: Addictive and with mind altering consequences yet it's allowed to sell more than 70 Million units...