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Available For: Nintendo Wii
Reviewed On: Nintendo Wii
I managed to put it down for years, but last night I fell off the wagon and fell hard. I was home alone, a little bored, a little restless. Before long, I found myself thinking, Well, just a little bit can’t hurt, right? By the time I came back to myself, several hours had passed, my eyes were red, and my thumbs were killing me. I squeezed my eyes shut, but all I could see were endless falling blocks and the pile at the bottom that kept growing and growing no matter how hard I tried to keep it down. My willpower irrevocably shattered, I finally gave in.
My name is Michael, and I’m a Tetris addict.
Recently, Nintendo released a new version of Tetris for its Wii console called Tetris Party, available for $12 through their downloadable WiiWare service. It’s been roughly 23 years since its first PC release, and, at its core, it’s the same game that has wasted so many hours on so many corporate and home computers since. Nearly every electronic device you can play a game on has seen some variation of it, frequently several.
So what does the Wii version bring to the table? Well, for starters, this version has the basic mechanics down pat. While you can play it using the Wii Balance Board, 99.9% of the population will play it with a Wiimote held sideways, so it resembles the classic two-button-and-a-direction-pad Nintendo controller. The sheer simplicity of the control scheme is one of the main reasons for the title’s longevity, and Nintendo smartly didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken.
On top of that, it features seven new modes of play, each tweaking the formula slightly. So far, I’ve gotten the most fun out of Field Climber, where the player has to use falling Tetris pieces to build a mountain, which a small stick-figure man can use to climb to the top of the screen. My other favorite is Dual Spaces, a kind of Tetris/Othello mash-up. Add in the fact that you can play against your friends over Nintendo’s Wi-Fi connection, and you’re looking at many, many more hours disappearing from your schedule.
The whole package is so good, it almost feels unfair to point out its shortcomings. However, there are two significant areas that just simply underwhelm. First, while having my Mii character (a mini avatar you can set up in the Wii console) walking around the background is neat and all, I miss the changing picture backgrounds of earlier versions (especially Moscow’s Red Square—after all, this game has to be one of Russia’s greatest contributions to the world…ever).
The more significant drawback is the fairly anemic status of online play. There are only a couple of game modes available, and Nintendo still hasn’t provided any support for voice-chat. You can still have fun with your friends online, but you’ll have more options (including the option of serious trash-talking) when you’re playing in the same room.
Those quibbles aside, Tetris Party still packs the same goods the original did in 1985. As I’ve learned alongside millions of others, you never really quit Tetris. Sometimes you just take longer breaks in between playing.
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