arcade

Do you already own a version of Tetris? If so, stick with that, and pretend that this one doesn't exist. It's not that Tetris Worlds is a bad game, it just...ok, it's bad. Though I admire the developers for trying to do new things with the concept of Tetris, they just didn't seem to think of anything very good.

There are a few modes of Tetris here, in addition to the original one. Really, you won't be playing any of those, as they don't make any sense. I don't think anyone wants to play Tetris, but only clear out specific lines and colors. It's not challenging, just annoying. I won't describe the other variations of the game, since really, I only played them once and left them for dead. What really sucks regarding gameplay though, is that the box where the pieces fall in is narrow. Remember how the original Tetris for NES and GB took up a good amount of the screen? Well it only takes up like 1/3 here...maybe a little more. But unless you're close to the tv, you'll be squinting at the pieces trying to pin-point where they should go. There's also a "ghost" feature. What it is is whichever piece you're moving around will have a faded version at the bottom of the box, showing where it'll be and how it'll look. I thought it was kind of annoying, since you're paying attention to the block you're moving, and there's something at the bottom that distracts you. Luckily, you can turn this feature off.

At least the music's good. It's all techno/ambient and somehow, fits the game pretty well. If you don't like the music, then you can always use the Xbox's custom soundtrack feature and make your own to hear during gameplay. There's only one problem with that: whenever you restart or pick a different mode, the soundtrack automatically skips to the next track even if you weren't finished with the current one. The graphics, well, there aren't much to them. The blocks are well animated (that sounds so lame), and the things going on in the background are nice looking I guess. It's not like Tetris was ever meant to break the graphic chart or anything.

Somehow, there's a story mode. I could read the instruction book to find out what it is, but that's ok, I'll pass. Looking over the other reviews here, I guess it has something to do with getting robots off a planet. *sigh* TETRIS WAS NEVER MEANT TO HAVE A STORY MODE. What's next? A Tetris rpg or 3-part movie series? Also, there's of course the online mode. But I don't care about online games. If you do play 'em, then there you go. I guess it'd be fun taking on other people via Xbox Live, especially since it can get boring once in a while in single mode.

Again, if you already own Tetris, stick with that version. $20 for a flashy version of it isn't really worth it. I'm lucky I got this with my Xbox and didn't have to pay for it. But if you don't have Tetris in any form, then you can probably find this in a used section for less than half the retail price.

First things first. I didn't buy this game, I got it with the Xbox bundle and let me just add that Microsoft aught to be ashamed bundling such weak titles with the Xbox. I love tetris in general but this game just doesn't do anything all that inovative with it. It's cool that THQ atempted to add a story element to the tetris concept but I found the story levels too hard. There just isn't enough reward for making lines after lines after lines or an adeqate enough incentive to try to beat the game.

Tetris Worlds does offer a new spin on the original game of Tetris, such as a story mode. The story is strange if not cheesy, a world made of block like creatures is being threatened, and they must escape their world by opening portals called Tetrions, which of course is why you play Tetris. Tetris has been out since 1989, it's a wholesome puzzle game for everyone, where blocks fall and you must position the blocks into rows. When you make a row of blocks, the blocks fade away if the blocks stack to the top, then you lose. The game has some new features, that make things a little too easy, such as the blocks have a shadow, so you can see where they will end up. You can see the next four blocks that will drop, and you can even throwaway blocks, before they drop. The final "improvement" is that the blocks are not permanently in place until you stop moving them, like when players have to drop a block past an overhang then wedge it in. There is some nice depth and distraction to the game, such as there are different worlds, jungle worlds, ice worlds and so on. When the blocks begin to stack the civilization in the background gets built. The further you go, the further the civilization grows. It's a nice touch, but of course it is really to distract the player! The music is good, but people might not like it, because it is futuristic and spacey, however if you have music on your X-Box you can play songs from that, rather than the Tetris soundtrack. The graphics are nice, but they could be so much better, its sort of like graphics for the 64 bit game consoles, not the super powered X-Box. There is now online play, so you can play against every other Tetris player using X-Box Live on Broadband. You can compete head to head, where when you complete a row, it feeds blocks to your opponent. For online play there are also scoreboards with the top players. Even with the online play, after Tetris has been available for nearly every game system this is nothing that any gamer can get excited about. Fortunately this game now comes as a part of a new X-Box Live bundle for Christmas of 2003.