Tetris Forever is a partial tribute to the greatest game of all time

Tetris Is Tetris. Basically it’s perfect and always has been. This becomes abundantly clear when you load the first playable game from the up-to-date interactive compilation of documentaries and retro games Tetris forever: original Tetrisas it was done on the obsolete Electronica 60 computer, which was already obsolete when Alexei Pajitnov wrote the game in Russia in 1984. All text is in Cyrillic, the blocks are made of parentheses (Elektronika 60 did not have a graphics feature in all of them), the only color is green, and the game lacks a few design improvements, such as a point multiplier for clearing multiple lines at once. And yet, primitive as it is, the game is as immediate and fierce as it is intuitive and as satisfying as any iteration since. This is a work of pure genius.

The opportunity to try this epoch-making software for ourselves is the greatest privilege the company gives us Tetris foreverwhich contains just a handful of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, versions of Pajitnov’s game over the last forty years. The most powerful revelation contained in the collection is the immediate, first-hand awareness that almost everything makes Tetris Great was present in these early lines of code. after that Tetris forever Digital Eclipse developer has both anywhere and everywhere.

Tetris forever is the latest addition to Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series, a format that combines expertly emulated classic games with a wealth of multimedia information presented in an interactive timeline: recorded interviews, archival video, documentation, graphics, photos and more. This is officially the third installment in the series, after delving into one title Creating Karateka and amazingly versatile Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story (which is basically real life UFO 50), although the format was set perfectly by the developer Atari50.

Tetrisits convoluted publishing history is a double-edged sword for Digital Eclipse. This makes for a compelling story, but it also makes creating a definitive compilation of playable versions of the game an impossible task. Meanwhile, the story is told by the versions that If this applies to a succession of talented game designers, including Pajitnov, who look in vain for a way to improve.

This behind-the-scenes story is reminiscent of a video game legend: a game created behind the Iron Curtain at the end of the Cold War becomes the subject of an intriguing rights fight involving the USSR, Nintendo and shady British media barons and buccaneer-entrepreneur Henk Rogers. The story even has a joyful ending, with Rogers and Pajitnov forming an unlikely romance, consolidating the rights, and managing the future of the game while collecting money the rest of the time.

It is also a story that has been told many, many times – vr a classic work of business journalism, solid BBC documentaryand a pretty stupid biopic, to name just three. Still, knowing this story shouldn’t take away from the material Digital Eclipse has gathered to tell it. There’s plenty of time for interviews with Rogers and Pajitnov, as well as expert testimony from a number of luminaries, including The Tetris effect designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Rogers tells a great story and brings the most critical moments to life.

What really stands out Tetris forever from these more conventional approaches to Tetris the story is a commitment to following the evolution of the game itself through countless editions on every platform imaginable. But at least all the key varieties Tetris are mentioned (and a few others), the publishing rights are so widely scattered throughout the story that Digital Eclipse – or even Rogers and Pajitnov’s rights holder, The Tetris Company, which clearly collaborated closely on this release – has no way of including playable versions of many of the them.

Nintendo, as fiercely protective of its catalog titles as ever, has not transferred the rights to any of its titles Tetris design variants. That means probably two final versions Tetris — the iconic Game Boy Tetriswho found the perfect combination of form, function and the NES Tetriswhich continues to be the gold standard in competitiveness Tetris play – are not included. (The Game Boy game is available on Nintendo Switch Online and the NES game is available is expected to be added to the service this winter.) Sega’s classic arcade version is now available, as is Arika’s hardcore Tetris: The Grand Master.

And these are just the most critical things. It is irritating to omit a brief mention of such a fascinating curiosity as the Philips CD-i player Tetriswith scattered New Age vibes and the impeccable aesthetics of a 1992 screensaver, without having to watch it in action, never mind playing it. (For an authoritative and entertaining overview of some of the games missed in Tetris foreverI recommend hour-long video by Digital Foundry’s John Linneman which presents almost 30 versions of the game.) Two of the most critical and fascinating up-to-date discoveries of the game have appeared in recent years – Tetris 99 AND The Tetris effect — but as current commercial titles, they are also outside the scope of this collection.

Instead, the game features a collection composed primarily of versions released by Rogers’ own Bullet Proof Software in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s: the 1988 Famicom release (not to be confused with the Nintendo NES game), the Tetris 2 + BomBliss series, and the game Cute versus Tetris Gaiden Battle. There are some notable variations from the Bullet Proof catalog, such as the Famicom game Go, which endeared Rogers to then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, and the charming but rather faint sequel Pajitnov Hatris.

There are valuable things here. Battle of Gaiden it’s still one of the best multiplayer versions of the game TetrisAND BombBliss (By Earthbound designer Akihiko Miura) is one of the more successful attempts to develop the game, introducing bombs that can be set off by filling lines. But the best any of these designs can hope for is to limit the degree to which they impair cleanliness Tetris. BombBliss is very good – especially in its riddle-like puzzle mode – but even a variation as successful as this one feels like a run-of-the-mill, clichéd puzzle game that is somehow cheesy and basic when placed next to the monolithic, unadulterated genius of its parent.

Digital Eclipse’s own contribution is a up-to-date game, Time warp in Tetriswhich has a fun trick: every time the player clears 10 lines, a time warp block falls, sending the player back to an earlier era Tetris: Electronica 60 version, a cheeky copy of the Game Boy Tetris16-bit BombBlissand so on. Completing a Time Warp Challenge grants you a gigantic point bonus before returning to the Modern Era. There is a decent, pleasantly cluttered multiplayer version Time warp which also supports up to four players.

Tetris it’s definitely forever. You can’t blame Digital Eclipse for wanting to commemorate this event, or Rogers and Pajitnov for taking another victory lap, this time in an interactive format. This game will always be worth studying and celebrating.

But Tetris it is also too perfect to evolve over time, too gigantic to contain in a single compilation, and too pure to require explanation. Rotate, drop, click, repeat. All this is apparent in the first five seconds. The rest is just lines to clear.

Tetris forever was released on November 12 for Atari VCS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on Switch using a pre-download code provided by Digital Eclipse. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.