Tetris DS Review - The Next Level

Tetris DS

Fitting together the pieces of a puzzle loses its charm around age 10, but after 20 years, stacking blocks still manages to hold my attention for hours. Even gamers with a short attention span can find joy in the simplicity of Tetris DS. This version comes with two advantages. It's portable and an opponent is only a wireless connection away. Yes, you're finally free to publicly humiliate your opponents. There's no greater victory.

You'll find a few new tools to give you a greater advantage in mastering your game. The most sinful of these is the infinite spin. So long as you keep spinning the tetrimino it won't lock into place giving you all the time you need to decide your next move. Fortunately this can't be exploited in multiplayer so there's no need to worry about your opponents cheapening the experience. Another of your tools is the ghost piece which gives you a preview of where your tetrimino will fall before it actually does. This makes it almost impossible to place them in the wrong place and if you do the only excuse you'll be able to use is “My finger slipped". Some might say using the ghost piece is cheating, but once you've played against someone without it you'll quickly discover what a powerful ally it can be. If there's ever been a time when you've cursed Tetris for giving you the wrong piece at the wrong time then you'll find the hold box to be your new best friend. Just press the left shoulder button and your current tetrimino is replaced with the one that followed it. You'll also no longer have to struggle with holding down on the d-pad to bring them to the bottom. Just tap up and they immediately drop. Your laziness is satisfied and you move on to the next piece.

When it comes to giving you options Tetris DS is no slouch. There are six modes to choose from, each themed with classic Nintendo games. In standard mode Mario will try his best to distract you from your goal of clearing 200 lines by poorly reenacting scenes from his past adventures on the top screen while you concentrate on surviving the onslaught of falling blocks on the bottom screen. As per the standard rules of Tetris, clearing 10 lines advances you to the next level and causes the blocks to fall even faster. At level one you'll have time to make a sandwich before you need to decide where to place your tetrimino, but that'll quickly shift toward the end of your goal when you'll have less than a second to make your move. Endless mode is unlocked once you're able to clear all 200 lines.

Donkey Kong is waiting for you to get just within his reach in Push mode. It works like a game of reverse tug of war with one player on the top screen and another on the bottom. The line is drawn in between and each player has to score more simultaneous lines to push their opponent back until there's no where else for them to go. Since this mode isn't timed in any way push games can go on for quite a long of time. Sometimes they go on even longer than you'd like them to so to be successful in push mode you'll need to play quickly and clear as many lines at the same time as possible. You don't want to feel Donkey Kong's wrath by getting backed against a wall.