iRelle

The other day I stumbled across a link to this fantastic little site - tetrisfriends.com

It was still in the opening stages when I first found it, but it is developing fast and becoming home to quite a large community of Tetris fans – needless to say, it was a whole lot of fun right from the beginning, and it just keeps getting better.

The site offers a range of single- and multi-player games in a variety of styles… there should be one to suit every player! These include 2 player and 6 player ‘battle’ games (object: to top out your opponent as many times as possible in two minutes), a single player and 5 player ‘sprint’ version (get rid of 40 lines ASAP), a regular ol’ 1989 nostalgia version, and survival and marathon modes. The games operate on a five-star leveled system – if you win a game, you score a star. second place in 5 or 6 player games earns you half a star. When you make it up to five stars, you progress to the next level. However: losing a game wipes a star off your chart, and drops you back to the level before. This means that you’ll always be playing against people with the same ability level as you, which makes things a whole lot more fun!  These games all have the element of competition that leaves you tapping keys furiously while sitting on the edge of your chair, but they are not real-time games. This is fantastic if you’re looking for a quick way to kill two minutes, but if you’re in for an hour (or two… or three) of relaxing entertainment, you should definitely check out…

TETRIS LIVE! You have to agree to the terms and conditions, and understand that this is still in BETA-testing stages (look, just tick the boxes already, would you?) but once you’re in, the fun really begins! You can enlist your friends to get their butts kicked as you show off your awesome skills, or just take on a room full of strangers – it doesn’t really matter. The chat bar on the side of the screen lets you vent your frustration or glee, depending on your success, and antagonise or befriend folks who are, like you, sitting in their lounge rooms and bedrooms at odd hours of the day and night, trying to boost their scores. The scoring works a little differently in the Live game than the others, but it’s still very volatile depending on your placing at the end of the game.

And that placing is very precarious! I have seen beginners at level one wipe out seasoned experts with a level 21 rating… and it’s all down to fun little things called items. Randomly, blocks will fall that include an item. When you wipe out the row with an item in it, you can use it to wreak havoc. Items with a green background will (usually) help your cause, and affect your own board. These include lovely treats such as removing a few rows off the bottom of your screen, or handing out half a dozen long tetriminos. The items with a red background, however, can be a lot more useful – they attack an opponent’s board and can confuse their controls, speed up their falling blocks and even swap your board with someone else’s (use this wisely. be warned.)

Over all, this game is incredibly fun (and I don’t even like Tetris very much) and definitely worth a look next time you’ve got a spare internet connection and ten minutes to waste. Just don’t blame me when your ten minutes turns into an hour, and you miss your doctor’s appointment.

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