Tetris

The Good
If you are a gamer like me, you most probably have heard of an addictive puzzle game called Tetris. It was released on every platform you can think of, and it was all the rage back in the day. When I still had my Commodore 64, I never got to experience this game (although I heard about it many times). But when I had my PC, I saw my sister playing Tetris Classic. I had a go myself and just couldn't stop playing it.

The game is so easy to grasp, so I won't bore you with the details. The reason why I couldn't stop playing it is because I wanted to beat my line count in every game. And I did the same thing with every version of Tetris I had a go at. There is a high score table so you can attack your score if you want.

Although there is a number of Tetris games out there for the Commodore 64, it is Mirrorsoft's version that remains my favorite to this day. Tetris for the 64 has a dark theme to it. The game welcomes you to a nice title screen on a black background, showing two naked figures side by side. The title above it looks very good, and it blends in with the gray background. During the game, the starry background looks spectacular. I'm not sure if the background changes after you level up; I haven't gotten that far yet.

The highlight of the game is the background music It is well composed. In fact, I could go one step further by claiming that it is the best music that I heard coming out of the 64. It is played all throughout the game, even when the game ends.

The Bad
Once you rotated the blocks then position them to where you want them, pushing down on the joystick automatically puts them to the bottom of the playfield. As a result, you don't see them fall, and you have to guess where exactly that piece lands. The blocks haven't got borders around the edges of each section, so they look boring.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, I found this version of Tetris for the Commodore 64 to be superior than others released for the same platform. The game's dark theme works. It has some great brackground music that is played throughout the game, and the backgrounds are amazing. Not much else to say really. If you are looking for a decent Tetris game for the 64, this is it.

The Good
The Commodore 64 version has undoubtedly, at least in my opinion, the greatest graphics and sound found in any Tetris version.

While most of the Tetris versions always seemed to push Russian imagery and music, C64 version goes for a more "intuitive" and "magical" feel. The greyscale graphics on the edges of the play field and the title screen are extremely stylish. The music, however, absolutely takes the prize: Really amazing stuff, almost 30 minutes of music that just fits to the Tetris idea, and really shows what the SID chip can do in caring hands.

The Bad
The C64 version lacks a few features found in latter versions, such as the Game Boy version. You can only rotate the tetraminos one way, and the drop is an instant drop instead of speeding up the fall. Also, there's only one variant of play (no "Game B"). Okay, so maybe these features weren't invented yet. I can forgive. I'm sure anyone can live without them, though.

The Bottom Line
I think it's useless to describe the game here because the game has been so revolutionary and everyone is familiar with it in some form, but here's a quick explanation: Blocks, scientifically termed "tetraminos", fall from the skies to a well. You arrange them best you can before they touch the pile on the bottom of the well. If you form a continuous row from edge of the well to another, it disappears. If the tetramino pile reaches the top, the game is over. In case you haven't figured out it already, this is the mother of all real-time puzzle games.

The end result is a simple, addicting game that doesn't require much from the computer - so obviously it works well on Commodore 64 as well. It is a very nice version. Game Boy version remains my favorite for sheer playability reasons, but C64 version will always remain, in my mind, the one with the best feeling created by the music and graphics - especially the amazing music.