Saturday Special

I am starting a new feature for the blog. Every Saturday I will reach back into the past and highlight one of my all-time favorite games. I start with one of my favorite multi-player games of all time.



The New Tetris is the best multi-player Tetris game that was ever made. Even Tetris DS with its Wi-Fi capabilities still does not surpass The New Tetris when it comes to multiplayer (though it does have such a wide variety of options and gameplay modes that it is the definitive Tetris so far).

This was the first Tetris game in America to feature 4-player head-to-head games. Beyond merely trying to outlast your friends head-to-head, the game also features a garbage system. When you got a Tetris four incomplete lines are sent the bottom of anther player's screen. If you clear three lines at once, two incomplete lines stack up under another player. When garbage was turned on, three options existed for how the garbage was distributed. The first would just go to the player to your right. Second, is the "hot potato" setting; all of the garbage goes to a random person until that person is able to clear a line, then all the garbage goes to someone else until they clear a line. Finally, the greatest garbage mode: directed garbage. You are able to select which person will get your garbage. This mode is great for doing two-on-two battles, or for trying to take down the superior Tetris player by ganging up on him 3-1. My fondest memories of this game is staying up late at a bachelor party and taking down Jeff Wassom with three people.

One of the best features of this game, that has not made it into any subsequent game, is the block making feature. If you made a 4x4 block with any four Tetris pieces they would merge into a gold or silver block. If you then cleared lines with a gold or silver block a much larger amount of garbage would be added to the other player. It usually ended up being a high risk - high reward trade off. Many times you would be so focused on creating a block and would end up allowing your screen to get so high that you were very susceptible to attacks from others.

Also present in the game for the first time in America was the ability to swap out one of the falling Tetris pieces. This allows you to save up a straight piece and work on getting a Tetris. The addition of this feature added a whole other element of strategy to the game.

Although this is a classic game I doubt that it will ever make it to the Virtual Console. There is currently a Tetris game in development for WiiWare. Tetris Party will feature 6-player online play and likely some form of motion control. I would love to see the return of block making as well, but I doubt that it will be included. Some rumors also speculated that balance board support is being added to the game as well. Either way hopefully it will create some great multiplayer game play.