Tetris Evolution Review - Xbox 360

Talk about a game with long legs. We’re talking something like 23 years since Alexey Pajitnov designed the mind-bending puzzler while working at Moscow’s Academy of Science of the USSR. Heck, it’s been almost 20 years since the game first appeared on the Game Boy and officially took the console world by storm.

The sad part is the 1989 GB release still stands as one of the best versions of the game. Ever since THQ took over the publishing duties, things haven’t been so rosy.

Drop in the Bucket

There’s been one main issue plaguing Tetris for years. And to those who aren’t really into the game, this is gonna sound completely stupid – the endless rotating feature has killed Tetris. What that means is that, when you get a piece to the bottom of the well, as long as you keep tapping a “rotate” button, you can spin that puppy ’till the end of time.

It didn’t used to be this way. Originally you had a very, very short period of time to rotate a piece at the last second and slide it into an awkward position. The endless rotate feature has destroyed much of the skill and strategy of Tetris.

And thankfully, you can pretty much eliminate it in Tetris Evolution. You have to fiddle with the settings, but it’s possible to make this play like the old Tetris we all knew and loved. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Connect Four

Evolution comes with the standard setup of options – you basically get to pile various objectives and restrictions over the already solid game rules. And it’s all as addictive as ever. And what’s more, the game supports up to four players both on a single system and over Xbox Live.

So that’s all well and good. The problem, though, is that Tetris, as a rule, is not a very impressive looking product. How many different ways can you present different geometrical shapes falling into a well? THQ’s tack is to dress it up with a myriad of different border options and full-motion video backgrounds that do more to distract from the action rather than help the overall presentation.

It’s like playing Tetris with a screensaver running behind it.

Digital Delivery

You know what would be a perfect fit? Tetris on Xbox Live Arcade. It’s really hard to understand why THQ didn’t take that route for this game. At approximately $10, and even minus some of the bells and whistles, this would have been one of the best Arcade titles of the year.

At $30, Tetris Evolution is a pretty ho-hum re-release of a game we’ve all been playing for two decades. It’s definitely the most playable version released since THQ entered the Tetris world, but it’s really hard to get excited about.

Article by: Greg Sewart