It's pretty hard to screw up Tetris -- the game's been popular since it was created back in the '80s and came in second on IGN's list of the 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time -- and, thankfully, EA hasn't. Tetris on the PlayStation 3 packs all the block droppin', line makin' fun you'd expect, but it also includes a cool multiplayer feature, a number of different game modes, and a ton of in-game challenges to pull off.
Hopefully, you understand how Tetris works. A puzzle game comprised of seven different blocks, Tetris challenges you to rotate the shapes and form horizontal lines with them. Finish a line, it erases, and you get points. Fail to do so, and a wall of mistakes builds. When you've screwed up enough, the wall hits the top of the screen, and you fail. A Tetris mastermind plays so that he or she is eliminating four rows -- or a tetris -- at once for the most points, but most of us mortals just eliminate a line at a time to stay alive.
Hopefully, you understand how Tetris works. A puzzle game comprised of seven different blocks, Tetris challenges you to rotate the shapes and form horizontal lines with them. Finish a line, it erases, and you get points. Fail to do so, and a wall of mistakes builds. When you've screwed up enough, the wall hits the top of the screen, and you fail. A Tetris mastermind plays so that he or she is eliminating four rows -- or a tetris -- at once for the most points, but most of us mortals just eliminate a line at a time to stay alive.
EA's take on that traditional formula is spot-on. The game itself is as fun as ever, the spinning is responsive, the high-definition graphics are crisp, and the onscreen score box lets you know how close you are to your next friend's high score.
Interfacing with the outside world is what this Tetris brings to the table and makes it a solid purchase for PlayStation Network fiends. Leaderboards let you track the progress of the rest of the world. There are also local and online multiplayer modes for up to four and six people, respectively. Multiplayer Tetris might not sound like a blast, but it is. Last night I joined up with three friends and spent quite awhile going at it in the game's Battle mode.
Battle mode, where clearing two or more lines on your screen sends lines to an opponent's screen, is just one of the options for you and the world to face off in. Team Battle breaks you into teams of two and allows you to switch between attacking (your cleared lines are sent to opponents) and defending (your work clears the garbage opponents have dumped on your screen). There are a few other options, and all of them are great fun thanks to power-ups that blackout opponent screens and freeze their movements. The cursing and screaming heard over my headset last night were some of the best multiplayer memories I've made in a while, but after each round, we were ready to go again. If you're in the mood for something simpler, there are local and online options that are just the Tetris you already know.
As great as Tetris is, it has a few issues. The online portion is one of the coolest aspects of the game, but you have to manually log on to the EA servers each time you start the game. It doesn't do this automatically, and without doing it, you can't post scores to the leaderboards, which aren't as prominently placed as they should be. Another hiccup is that while you can invite friends to your six-player contests, you can't form parties or groups. This means that even if you have a good squad together, you have to break up and re-invite each person each time you decide to switch modes. Voice chat also seemed shaky in some of my matches.
So many shapes!
In fact, this game is pretty much an HD version of that Mini with the online stuff and Trophies tossed in to boot. Even the Feats -- objectives that range from playing for 90 minutes to clearing 12 lines in one turn -- seem to be recycled from the Mini. It's not a big deal as it is all fun.
