Along with Shmups few games transcend gaming it self, even fewer has as storied a history as tetris and besides the horrible Xblade NONE come from mother russia. Tetris is one of those games that just trancends all gaming. Those pro gamers? put them in front of a REAL game like Tetris and their feeble brains won't put together enough lines to get past level 9, It takes skill and a sharp fast thinking mind to do well in Tetris not a quick mouse and BFG. Yet from the youngest child to my 83 year old great aunt anyone can really step up and give Tetris ago.

To date due to alot of legal wrangling and question marks there are thousands of versions of Tetris. They all are for the most part The same game, there are also games like the American version of Panel de Pon which exploit the Tetris name (like Panel De Pon which it self is a fantastic game and another personal favorite) I'm going to get to my 5 favorite versions of Tetris in a bit (though the list may be 10 becuase there are so many good versions)


How though, How did tetris get to where it is? Why until the fall of the great soviet empire did it's creator not see a dime of royalties from Tetris? Well if you don't know the story here it is.

His full name Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov, and in 1984 he created a game for which would be up there with other pure greats like Pac man and Space Invaders but unlike the creators of those classics he was Russian not Japanese. The game was in the sprit of Pentominos a fun little greek puzzle. (Of which at least 1 "Kiddy" tetris would use) It can't be said that the Tetromino was created by tetris. but it is the most common use of them. The game was programmed on a soviet computer called the Elektronika 60 and later ported to the IBM PC by 2 friends of Pajitnov, Dmitry Pavlovsky, and Vadim Gerasimov The IBM version made it outside of mother russia and the bid to get this game released world wide began.

Due to a few rights confusions the soviet government was the licensor for Tetris while Pajitnov had a seperate company this is what led to the many legal issues around tetris. Through this confusion Atari got the arcade rights, Nintendo go the home rights and any console historian knows what happens with that.

It wasn't until 1996 that Tetris' creator finally got the rights to his own game back. He has however created a few games that aren't tetris. Weltris being one of the best, The fun but not so great Hatris and if you have an XBOX 360 then Hexic is another one of his you've played, He also did wild snake and the Puzzles in the SNES version of Yoshi's Cookie.

Ok, Now we know the rules stack the blocks to form lines and erase them by taking out 1-4 at once. 4 being a tetris. There's alot of technical and math involved in the generation and such for tetris for which I suggest reading the Tetris wiki.

OK now it's time to move on to my 5 favorite versions of Tetris

Tetris Battle Gaiden Super Famicom, 1993



The foundations for some of what we'd see in another fantastic puzzle game Super Puzzle fighter II X are first seen here, special attacks and 1 vs 1 play (though Puyo Puyo and arcade tetris already had this) It also had some pretty memorable characters and awesome music. A good Japanese take on the Russian classic.


Magical Tetris Challenge Nintendo 64 1998


Capcom put this one out, this one is one of the few that is a tetris game but delves into pentominoes after some play pentominos start to fall. Now don't let the Disney backdrop fool you, this is still a fantastic entry into Tetris and after only 10 minutes of play I was hooked and plan to go back to it when I'm done writing this.

Tetris the Grandmaster Challenge 2 Arcade 2000


Akira best known for arcade fighters like Street fighter EX and EX2 as well as the little known spin off game Fighting layer did what some consider the definitive Tetris One poster at Assmbler stated

"One beast of a game: Challenging to beginners as well as to professionals, visually basic but beautiful to look at and motivating as hell."

After spending 15 minutes with this version, he's right. it is an amazing envisioning of Tetris, one no mame install should be without.

Tetis- Atari arcade 1989



My personal favorite. The arcade version later ported illegally by Tengen to the NES and ligation ensued, resulting in one of the most expensive versions of the greatest game ever made. This is however much better than Nintendo's version, the Music is more memorable the pieces are more uniform so there's more guess work involved in where to place things for the best result. The speed is another factor in which this game is WIN it's much faster than Nintendo Tetris.

AND the WINNER is............

Tetis -MS DOS ??? ???



Funny story, we used to run this on a Tandy with no hard drive just 2 floppy drives and HUGE ONES at that.
This is one of the few non shareware games we had and this was the Tetis I learned to play with. Later we got what was at the time a state of the art Windows 3.1 machine and that system just ran this mofo WAY too fast.

As far as a pure Tetris experence goes short of having an Electronika 60 this is it. No music, no anything just you, some nice backdrops and the tetris pieces. If you ask me this as pure as Tetris gets.


YES I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW I left the Gameboy versions out but SO WHAT Tetris isn't NINTENDO's game.
I loved the game boy version but it's not the best. My opinion is the 5 I highlighted are the definitive versions of Tetris.

Review-

So how's the game hold up after all this time and a fresh coat of HD paint? Well....




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Sorry about the spam but I couldn't resist

Anyways, the game has never looked or played better, I can't find the custom soundtrack option though.
but everything looks smooth and crisp and the game has aged well and do I sense a bit of rebalancing too?

Haven't had an online match yet but then again it is only 9:09 am...there's time

I feel like Dtoid needs to get to know me again. Aftrer SO MANY BLEH entries and a string of good ones I think a new new new new fresh start is in order. (should I hide the bad ones?) You know a little bit (ok ALOT) so here are a few things about me, My thoughts on gaming and my thoughts on some industry "Icons"

Screen name- I used to go by Bemanisuperstar Why bemanisuperstar? I was one of the first to bring DDR West. I stopped using the name because there so much bad associated with it I needed a new name so I went to Rum and Monkey's Japanese name thingy and typed in my name I got Michiyo Yoshikuni......I had no idea Michiyo was a girl's name. It should of have Yoshikuni Kazama (Dear Namco cast me as Jin's Son in Tekken 8) God of Hardcore my live name and name on several forums is a wrestling name I gave my self.

Gaming Philosophy- A game should tell a story but also challenge you, Shmups and Tetris are the purest gaming Genres there are. Sports games are getting too simmy and even back in the day there weren't many good ones but there are still sports games that are classics to this day like Joe Montana football and the sports talk Series, Baseball stars, Tecmo Bowl and so on. Arcades need to come back the social aspect of gaming is dying even with the advent of PSN and XBOX live To save arcades we need more things that can't fit in our living rooms like cockpits or something like Sega's classic R360. Most licensed games are shit TMNT games endure not just becuase they're awesome but because the characters are endearing and timeless. Same reason we still look back at Rescue rangers and Duck Tales on the NES. They're good games but the cartoons still hold up. Anime games are dependant on the designer and how much we love those characters but the classic Anime games also tend to be from classic Animes. Either way the Ranma games are great on the SNES and Naruto may be shit but the games are also quite awesome...something about Japanese games with a license. Comic book games are hit and miss. We all love the watchmen but in 10 years how fondly will we remember The end is Neigh? But we do love us some Maxium Carnage and Konami's Xmen beat em up (there's 1 character I don't recognize though)

On that social thing I mentioned above, Video games are a great unifier I know a guy who visted Greese and bonded with the locals over metal slug, same with Pakistan. I was talking to a guy in Argentina about how great the Genesis was. Video games unifiy. Unless you're into console warring then they divide.

On industry Greats

Miyamoto- Is he REALLY THE MAN. Remember how they said at Nintendo's E3 Press deal that they couldn't do 4 player Mario before? RLY? Would Zelda exist without Adventure? Would Mario exist without Pitfall? How ever in his defense DONKEY KONG WAS unlike anything else at that time and his games are enduring and fun that's what matters but I don't think he's the visionary he's made out to be.

Yuji Naka- alot of his great games are in the shitter. In fact I think EVERY IP HE HELPED MAKE IS IN THE SHITTER. His fault? NO We can blame him on the gateway drug to being a Furry yes the Sonic Series but still.
Hard to hate the man that did something as unique as Nights.

Ralph Bear- DID NOT invent the Video game. It's doubtful about the console too even. However the man that gave us Simon should get some respect

Nolan Bushnell- Also did not invent console gaming but he did work towards perfecting it and he did create the arcade as we know it. Plus he created Chuck E. Cheese. I don't find many 2600 games playable now but
I think Bushnell has given more to the industry we love than we give him credit for now. Nintendo as we know it would've been different had Atari not existed (by the way NOT being the NES distributor in the US atari....BIGGEST GAMING FUCK UP EVER but was that his call or someone else's?)

Hidieo Kojima- he isn't in the league of the ones above. But he's mentioned as a great but why? He could have been a great film maker or anime producer even actor. But he's a hack. He claims to love nintendo but how many wii and gamecube games did he make? Why is he so loyal to Sony if he's such a huge Nintendo freak? Why is he loyal to ANYONE to begin with? He missed his true calling, He should have done film not games.

Keiji Inafune- Mega Man, Street Fighter, Onimusha, all games he's responsible for. Yet he's never mentioned among the greats. He did not create Street Fighter but he did do the designs for the first game. When Yuji Naka a man who's creations have gone in the shitter is mentioned more than Inafune a man who's franchises still thrive there's something wrong with the gaming public and Street fighter and Mega man are my 2 favorite franchises EVER.

Ken Kutaragi- Sony is a bit full of themselves, they're the industry equivalent of the fiddlers on the titanic. But You have to admire him and the others at sony for standing up to Nintendo who for the longest time were ASSHOLES. But yet the Sony story is alot like George Orwell's Animal Farm with Sony being the hogs, and Nintendo being the farmers driven out. But that aside. He DID stand up to Nintendo HE DID create a new brand that has thrived and done well, He also is in part responsible for one of the best controllers no THE BEST controller ever in Gaming (I don't know if he designed the dual shock himself or not) I may not like Sony but I do respect what this man helped or more like DID create. Even I have a PS2 then again who doesn't?

Gunpei Yakoi- above I said Nintendo used to be assholes... 1 Falure 1 Falure and this man was forced out of the company. The man who created the Gameboy, the D pad THE FUCKING D-PAD and he made it. Even the DS came from game and watch another creation of his. He was Nintendo's true visionary and after the massive failure the Virtual boy was (which I though was kinda neat) he gets kicked to the curb. Then he went on to create the wonderswan which it self was a pretty nice handheld that never was offically seen in the west. Sadly he died in an accident who know what he could have created. I wish he would get more respect.

Will Wright- Not into his games sim games aren't my thing but this man is so smart he really should have done more than create game. He made alot of money but the great mind of his sharp and articulate has gone to waste.

Alrighty well that's it for me. if I left anything out you want my thoughts on leave em in the comments and I'll comment about them. What do I think of EA? Activsion? where gaming is going? let me know.

I have a TON of games and thus niche materal to feed you guys. As I type this I'm torrenting oh.......EVERY NEO GEO GAME EVER save for the really shitty ones and once I find more shitty ones.. well you'll know.

See Inspite of my utter hatred of SNK now (for everyone who doubted me on KOF XII I telled you) I am a HUGE fan of neo geo games. I might even buy a pair of those PS3 Neo Geo Sticks to use with my laptop.

So anyways I've been on a roll lately so how would you guys like me to present the Neo? Should I review one game at a time? Chronicle the evolution of a series like Fatal Fury or Samurai Shodown?

Should I only cover the games you never heard of?

Let me know in the comments. I'll get crackin in a few days.

By the way Neo Turf Masters

BEST GOLF GAME EVER and it's made by...the Metal Slug People?

Shadow the Hedgehog

Sonic Heros Blew......ok it just blew. Poor Level design KILLED it. Shadow however, was met with some positive reviews one of the last sonic games not called Rush to get them. Fans however hate this game.. OMG THERE"S A GUN AND SHADOW CUSSES. I like brancing stories adds to replay value choosing to do what Eggman whats, or the path of Being selfish or the tenticle thing that sounds like Dr Claw, is quite fun and unlike Sonic Heros I think it has pretty damn good level design too.



Kakuto Chojin

VERY Grossly underrated, had this game had xbox live and there wasn't an uproar about it offending those stupid cry baby emo Muslims. This could've been the 2nd big fighting franchise for the XBOX. 4 player Tekken? Shit yeah. Graphically it was one of the best looking XBOX games and the fighting engine while it did have issues like hit dection and a few odd things about it was pretty deep. The cast was interesting as well I juggled comboed some fool for an entire round with the fat dude. It wasn't to be though, Reviwers for good reason HATE Dream Factory so even their 2 good games are over shadowed by the assfest that was The Bouncer.



Star Soldier Vanishing earth

The Whole F'n n64 is underrated. at least by me. once you get back the worst controller ever conceived by man the games were good. Shmup Fans didn't have much Importers had Bangaioh and everyone else had this gem. Like the PC Engine games this also had timed modes and a full game. Graphically hell this measures up to a ton of Dreamcast games though it might be Project 64 up scaling and smoothing. It's not a great game but it's a good Shmup and by default the best on the N64.



Chase HQ

Taito can do little wrong. They hardly did anything wrong with this amazing racer. It gave a better sensation of speed in 2d than Outrun did. Lets face it outside of Pole position which was simply a fun diversion at best.
Few 2d racers were well any good. Outrun and many posers. It wasn't until Virtua Racer that racing games became well, FUN. Chase HQ realizes this and it's a straight up racing or driving game, it's a catch the bad game game and it's fantastic.It did get a ton of ports including the Gameboy. What makes this game so great is that it really gives you a sensation of speed. Check it out, though it's best to seach seedy bowling alleys and movie theaters for a sit down version of the game.



Gangster town

VERY Grossly underrated, it's unfair accuracy system holds it back but also holding it back is that it's an obscure light gun game.... ON THE SEGA FREAKIN MASTER SYSTEM. So even on the obscure it's obscure.
Mostly it's the precursor to Virtual Cop though it does a few things VC doesn't do like have a TON OF ENEMIES ON SCREEN AT ONCE for an 8bit game the sheer number of sprites on screen are astounding.
This also does the VC Shoot the good people and lose a life thing and the opening Car chase is EPIC.Not that the game doesn't have problems if you die you have no clue WHY becuase there's no way to know you're even getting shot until AFTER you're shot. 2nd the game rates your accuracy and the way it does it in incredibly unfair considering you have 10-20 gangsters on screen at once in a REALLY FAST autoscroll stage.. Also, the music doesn't feel 1920s enough. But as you probably know if you've played Master system games, Most master system music has a bloopingness to it. (As in you can recreate it by mostly making melodic blooping noises) Still dispite it's flaws I LOVED this game while all the cool kids played Hogan's Ally which was light years behind this game. A few refinements 10 years later and we had Virtual cop.



Guilty Gear 2

I give Arcsys credit. Just as we were fucking sick of being force fed Guilty Gear XX (just a 1 more game to tie Street fighter for most upgrades) and begging for something new...Our prayers were herad. OH AND THEY GAVE US SOMETHING NEW ALRIGHT. A Dynasty Warriors meets CTF game and to it's credit it's actually really fun in short bursts. It lacks the cast of the 2d fighters (They Street Fighter IIIed the cast only Sol and Ky Return) But none the less the game is an incredibly simple RTS styled Dynasty Warriors clone the music while mostly lackin the Guilty Gear metal is good and YES there is guilty gear metal to be heard some of the best in the series. BUT While Guilty Gear fans wanted something new they meant a real full fighting game sequel...not an RTS Dynasty Warriors clone. Its too bad OCD infected Fighting game players skipped this over but Hardcore gamers like us...Gotta at least give this one a rent. I picked it up the other day and while I'm not blown away by it, I am having fun with it something I haven't had with a game IN A LONG TIME.

Face it just becuase you can play a game at home doesn't mean you experience it. Model 2 games extend beyond Zero Gunner, Pilot kids Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighting VIpers.

It has MORE than it's share of Racing games and other unique games So you must ask Since this IS SEGA and they do have wacky arcade cabs you must be asking yourself

HOW THE HELL DO YOU PLAY:

House of the dead?



Answer: First off Game runs beautifully.Second, Like an FPS bitch! Aim with the mouse fire with Z (Remapped by me to A) reload with the Right mouse button.

Virtual On?



Answer: No twin sticks a quick look in the mapping menu show the 2nd twin stick was mapped to the machine as separate buttons The game needs to be releaned for the key board but if you're going to "remote control a mech for war purposes" and you don't have a twinstick why not use a keyboard?

DAYTOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?

Before I answer the question this game is A PAIN IN THE ASS TO GET WORKING. SO to prevent your headaches here's the complete rom

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KIDH7IE6



Answer: ROOOOOOORING SARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT It's awkward I don't know what the stick shift is UP is the accelerator apprently (or its automatic I can't tell) zxcv are the camera angles. All other Model 2 racers are the same thing.

Top skater?



Answer: Of all the games i tested this was acutally alot of Fun NOTE TO THE EMUMAKERS SOME HOW ADD SUPPORT FOR THE TONY HAWK RIDE CONTROLLER!!! C and V select everything Z and X jump arrow keys make your skater move.

Ok that's it for now Wave runner is unplayable due to speed issues as is Gunblade and a few other Model 2C games.

In Part 3 I'll cover the fighters and how they run on the emulator.