Tetris Evolution Review

Despite my complaints with Tetris Evolution I ended up renting it because my wife is a big fan of Tetris. We played for a while the other night and the game itself plays fine. I've heard some people complaining about the 360 controller not working well for Tetris, but I did not have any issues with it. It plays as well as any version I've played on a console before.

The game does offer a lot of play modes and customization. Besides the standard "Marathon" mode, which is the standard playing most of us are use to, there are 6 other game modes that offer different scoring variations. The Cascade and Hot Line modes are not my style, but Ultra and Go Low are pretty fun variations. In addition to the mode and scoring variations there are numerous other ways to customize the game to play exactly how you want. You can turn ghost on, allow for endless rotating, turn on garbage, turn a grid on, and more. Also, you can customize your background with your own pictures or video clips. Personally, I don't see then need for playing a slide show of my photos in the background as it is just a distraction from the game, but Lumines Live had similar it so I expect other puzzle games will begin to pick up on this trend. I guess you could use the slide show to your advantage by trying to distract your opponents, but other than that I don't see the benefit of having a changing background.

If your a fellow Achievement Whore then keep in mind that Tetris Evolution is not a quick 1000 points. The achievements are mostly for getting a specific scores in the different game modes. Each game mode has a few different scores you need to reach to get all of the achievements. The lower ones are pretty easily attainable, but some of the higher scores are going to take a lot of work.

That brings us to the multiplayer. I played against my wife for a while on out 32 inch SD TV and did not have any trouble. It played smoothly. We had a good time trying to outlast each other in Marathon and then trying to beat each other's high scores in Ultra mode. After she got done playing I tried a few matches on Xbox Live and it played just as smoothly. I could not tell any difference between playing online and playing split screen. Given that the most people playing together over Live is only 4 I did not expect to have any issues with lag (like you might see in a 14 player room of Rainbow Six: Vegas) and my expectations were met. Finally, Tetris fans can prove they are as good as they say they are by playing opponents all over the world.

Even though I am having fun playing Tetris Evolution I'm still not sure it is worth $30. Even with all the customizations and online play I still fine myself spending most of my time playing the standard marathon mode. I would much rather pay $10 or $15 bucks for an Xbox Live Arcade version. They should have left out all of the options to play videos and pictures as the background, and then put it on XBLA. If you are a huge Tetris fan, or if you need a version of Tetris to play in HD, then Tetris Evolution is probably for you. For anyone else, wait a few months and pick up a used copy.

Tetris Evolved Coming

I saw today on IGN that THQ is releasing a new Tetris game called “Tetris Evolved.”

"Tetris Evolved adds two new modes, Go Low and Eraser, for both single and multiplayer gaming. The multiplayer modes support local and Xbox Live play for up to four people and Xbox Live vets can use the matchmaking system to vie against same-skilled Tetris players and track them via a newly implemented ladder system. Tetris Evolved also offers achievement points, "high definition" graphics, and adds video backgrounds as well as customizable themes, skins, icons and soundtracks."

I do like Tetris. So, the idea of a release for the Xbox 360 with support for four people locally or over matchmaking sounds like it could be fun, but at the end of the day it is still just Tetris; another retro game. The price and release date have not been announced, but if they charge more than $25 for it I do not expect that they will sell that many copies. On the other hand, if they were to add it to Xbox Live Arcade for 800 points ($10) I think quite a few people would download a copy. Even though I don’t like a lot of retro games I know that we would be buying it at our house because my wife loves Tetris. We use to play on the Nintendo 64 with some friends and she would school the rest of us. With the addition of the video backgrounds, themes, skins, icons and soundtracks it sounds like Tetris is taking a note from Lumines Live. Hopefully they don’t take after the Lumines Live pricing scheme as well.

So, THQ, please release Tetris Evolved as an Arcade release and don’t waste our time trying to charge for a full retail release or with a Lumines Live pricing plan.