Sometimes you want to go slow with your tetronimo stacking. Plan it out. Set aside an hour or two, light some candles, put on some inspiring classical Russian music and explore your relationship with the legendary puzzle game to its fullest extent. Then there are times when your passion for Alexy Pajitnov’s creation run so high you just want to grab it by the pixels and stack it as fast as humanly possible, spending all your power-ups in a brilliant, breathless two-minute burst. That’s Tetris Blitz.
Fans of the original shape-stacking game are often torn when it comes to offshoots and variations. Tetris is a pure, innocent thing that doesn’t need to be painted up like some common modern-day puzzle game to attract attention. It’s beautiful as it is.
And that’s true, but when you’re playing the same game for years and years, sometimes you get the itch to spice things up a little bit. It may feel cheap and dirty, but on a certain level it can be quite fulfilling. Tetris Blitz dresses up the original in bright colours and gives you two minutes to do whatever you want with it.
There’s no time to spin your bits about, looking for the perfect fit. Instead, each piece presents you with a number of possible drop points. Purists can opt to handle things manual, if they wish, but letting the game do the work for you is much faster annd yields better results. Speed is of the essence here — if you want to maintain a multiplier you’ve got to keep the rhythm going.
It wouldn’t be a kinky Tetris-variant without toys, and EA’s got an entire bedside table filled with interesting new ways to knock some out. Lasers destroy entire rows. Avalanches rain pieces down on the board, filling in the blanks. There’s a power-up that reserves the negative space on the board as the game ends for a massive point explosion that will leave you panting and breathless.
There’s no charge for Tetris Blitz’s manic two minutes, but there’s always a cost. In this case it’s the price of power-ups. As you play you’ll earn coins, used to implement power-ups between rounds, but the really good shit costs, and those point explosions are intoxicating. If you want to keep them going, eventually you’re going to have to leave a few bills on the nightstand. Your Facebook friends are watching, and you want to put on a good show.
I love the original Tetris. Tetris Blitz may satisfy my needs and leave me temporarily satisfied, but it will never replace the original in my heart, for whatever that’s worth.
Tetris Blitz
Genre: timed Tetris
Developer: Electronic Arts
Platform: iOS, Android
Price: free
Get Tetris Blitz from the iTunes App Store.
Get Tetris Blitz on Google Play.
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