iPod Games Review Roundup (page 5 of 8)

Tetris

Unless you haven't played a video game since 1985, you know about Tetris. So I'll get into it without beating around the bush.

Developed by EA, this is a snazzy remake of the world famous puzzle game, complete with a hip, clubby rendition of the original soundtrack. There are three modes of play: marathon (play for as long as you can; levels increase), 40 lines (clear 40 lines as quickly as you can), and ultra (clear as many lines as you can in 3 minutes.

The controls take a little getting used to, though. The left and right buttons (forward and reverse) on the scrolls wheel rotate Tetriminos respectively, the select button does a soft drop, the down button (play/pause) performs a hard drop, and the scroll wheel moves pieces from right to left. The tricky part is getting acquainted with using left and right to rotate (it just feels awkward at first) and adjusting to the sensitivity of the scroll wheel. At times we accidentally dropped a piece one space off of where we were expecting it to land. A good 10 minutes should have you up to speed with the controls; it's really just a matter or breaking old Tetris habits.

Graphically, this iPod version of Tetris is very slick, with nice round edges on the pieces and very bright, vibrant colors. There is a shadowy trail that follows behind pieces when you hard drop them and there is the option to turn on/off the ghost that shows where a piece will land on the bottom of the screen. Like most other games, it has a time/battery display.

Fun Factor: 4.0

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