Game Debate #36: Tetris

[docile tapeworm | 4,198]

should i join ti-83 in getting a genital piercing?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,530]

1 minute ago, docile tapeworm said:

should i join ti-83 in getting a genital piercing?

Well that went from 0-60 in record time.

But, yes, you should.

[docile tapeworm | 4,198]

me and you and you and me...

[AstralSoul | 502]

I mean it's Tetris. Everyone should play it. I gave it a 9 because although it's iconic in every way and might actually be objectively the greatest game of all time,it's not one of my absolute favorites. When I play it I can really get into it but I don't play it often nor get the urge to. Still,it's an amazing game.

[Tulpa | 3,500]

1 hour ago, Sumez said:

"Tetris" is a very wide range of options here.

Are we just talking about the game concept in general, spanning across every implementation? The original Electronika 60 version, or the more popular MS-DOS one, or any of the arcade or console variants?

If it's just "Tetris" altogether, it's unbeatable. Surefire 10/10. Tetris The Grand Master 2 is the best implementation of Tetris that exists, and quite possibly the best video game in the world. It's pretty much the Chess of the video game platform.

I could go on forever, providing a wallpaper of text for every page of this thread, all it takes is someone to kickstart me. 

I got the sense that the poll is primarily for the NES version. Licensed Nintendo.

[Sumez | 2,951]

9 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

I got the sense that the poll is primarily for the NES version. Licensed Nintendo.

Where is that indicated? 
There's 0 text in the OP as far as I can tell.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Sumez

[RH | 4,903]

I gave it an 8. Definitely a classic puzzle that never gets old, but it is repetitive. That's not a bad thing. It does make it continually accessible, but for me I don't want to play it more than an hour, then I won't come back to it for another year or so.

My favorite puzzle game is Intelligence Qube, though.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

2 hours ago, Sumez said:

If it's just "Tetris" altogether, it's unbeatable. Surefire 10/10. Tetris The Grand Master 2 is the best implementation of Tetris that exists, and quite possibly the best video game in the world. It's pretty much the Chess of the video game platform.

I could go on forever, providing a wallpaper of text for every page of this thread, all it takes is someone to kickstart me. 

Okay, I'll bite: why do you feel the "Tetris The Grand Master 2" version is the best implementation when it contains modern mechanics that were added soley to water down the difficulty and provide a crutch to make the game easier for less-skilled players?  I've never played it, but just watching a video on youtube, I can see that it has those lame shadow guides to help people see where their piece is going to land, for starters...

As for the poll, I had to go 10/10.  I don't play Tetris very often any more, but its quality is undeniable.

[peg | 370]

I'm not sure what my top 10 games of all time list would look like, but I know that Tetris would be in there.  I've been playing on and off for years, both the NES version and to a lesser extent the Gameboy version.

 

One of my goals for this year is to finally hit 1 million points on the NES version, my current PBs are 813K for level 18 start and 590K for 19 start.  Dunno how far off I am from doing 1 Mil, but I'm going to keep trying for it.

[Tulpa | 3,500]

2 hours ago, Sumez said:

Where is that indicated? 
There's 0 text in the OP as far as I can tell.

The graphic is of the NES version, it's the version used in classic pro competitions, and it's the only one worth playing, so

In all seriousness, the graphic and the fact that most of us here have probably played the NES (and GB) versions more than the other versions combined.

Also, Tengen Tetris is overrated. Yeah, I went there.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Tulpa

[Jeevan | 8,911]

gave it a fiver, and that is only because i prefer to watch it instead of playing.  CTWC for the win!!!!

[Webhead123 | 675]

I clicked 9/10 on the poll and immediately regretted not giving it the full 10. While incredibly simple relative to what contemporary gaming resembles, Tetris' gameplay is timeless, accessible to anyone regardless of age, gender or gaming exposure and is an absolute core classic right alongside Pong, Space Invaders and Pac-Man.

I don't think I'm all that good at Tetris and I don't exactly sit down with it for hours-long sessions or anything but that's one of its other incredible strengths: that you can find challenge and satisfaction whether playing for 5 minutes or for an afternoon.

My personal favorite and most nostalgic version will always be the one I played on the the family black-n-white Macintosh but it was around that same time that I also got a Game Boy and spent many hours with the portable version as well.

So yes, not the most complex or fully-featured game but that's not what its trying to be. It is the definition of "easy to play, hard to master".

Tetris Macintosh Music

[Sumez | 2,951]

3 hours ago, Tulpa said:

The graphic is of the NES version, it's the version used in classic pro competitions, and it's the only one worth playing, so

Ok this is what I was thinking of. You're definitely seeing something I'm not. What graphic, where?
This makes an important distinction for me, because the NES version of Tetris is definitely not a 10/10 game, due to awkward issues specific to that version (but it's still one of the better version for other reasons)

3 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Also, Tengen Tetris is overrated. Yeah, I went there.

I'm not sure anyone likes Tengen Tetris, it's just popular because of its rarity and historical circumstances.

As a Tetris game it's really terrible.  

[Sumez | 2,951]

5 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Okay, I'll bite: why do you feel the "Tetris The Grand Master 2" version is the best implementation when it contains modern mechanics that were added soley to water down the difficulty and provide a crutch to make the game easier for less-skilled players? 

Easy. Because it doesn't.  

TGM2 is the most pure and refined iteration of the "classic" Tetris concept that I can imagine.
It takes basically the best parts from the best earlier versions of the game (all of which existed before the NES versions) and utilizes them the best way possible. And instead of tools like wall kicks and lock delay being a crutch for the player, they become a tool that are absolutely necessary for survival when gravity gets cranked up to the max.

It does remove any unnecessary complications from the controls, allowing a super fast sideways repeat rate that can be charged before any piece spawns, as well as the feature to rotate a piece 90 degrees while it spawns, in order to get it to its intended position as smoothly as possible. If you are well versed in the controls, and know exactly where you want the piece, you'll be able to get it there within a matter of frames, and it's a beautiful thing when you pull it off across a long string of pieces.

Think that makes the game easy? Think again  TGM2 requires an extremely high level of skill from the player, hence the name. The game speeds up very fast, and by level 500 (out of a 1000 - each piece is a "level" in this) gravity has already reached the maximum, slamming pieces down so fast they spawn on top of the stack, giving you only 30 frames to slide it into place, which in turn makes even stricter requirements in terms of how you can afford to stack your pieces to make room for moving future ones. And by the end of the regular game (900-1000) you are down to 17 frames before it locks in place. It's a fast paced action game as much as it's a cerebral puzzle.

To me the pure genius in Tetris comes from how deep the stacking puzzle is, and how the tetris scoring mechanics derived from that is, meaning no matter how many years you've played there is always a constant room for improvement. But another core element to the game is how even a single innocent mistake can pile up and make everything worse, essentially ending everything there and then. And TGM2 has both the ruthless survival game and the infinitely high mastering curve down to a science.

 

5 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I've never played it, but just watching a video on youtube, I can see that it has those lame shadow guides to help people see where their piece is going to land, for starters...

The ghost piece (shadow guidelines) only shows up for the first 10% of the main game, and it doesn't make the game "easier" for anyone outside of maybe someone who just picked up the game yesterday and wouldn't make it far anyway. Helping showing the players where a piece will land only serves to create less abstraction from the controls between the player of the game. The core skills of Tetris are puzzle solving and speed, and it helps with neither of those. If you're playing TGM well, you're playing too fast for the ghost piece to ever have any relevance.
And regardless of your skill, for the majority of the game (and the entirety of it in some of its modes), if you see the piece down there when it spawns, it's because the piece already dropped to that position. 

 

We can get into a whole different debate about whether the "watered down" difficulty added via new mechanics in other versions of Tetris makes it a worse game or not. Because those additions to the tetris guideline ultimately changes it into a slightly different game with a slightly different focus, making completely different requirements for optimal stacking, where survival against the computer isn't the core focus as much as survival against a human opponent.

Now personally, I think those additions do make the game worse, and I don't really like any modern implementations of Tetris, and that's also the reason why I would never celebrate Tetris The Grand Master 3 in the same way I do for 2. So I won't be making those arguments, but I think it's worth noting that they are out there, and they aren't irrelevant.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Sumez

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

3 hours ago, Sumez said:

Ok this is what I was thinking of. You're definitely seeing something I'm not. What graphic, where?
This makes an important distinction for me, because the NES version of Tetris is definitely not a 10/10 game, due to awkward issues specific to that version (but it's still one of the better version for other reasons)

I think he means the picture of the box art on the OP.

I like NES tetris a lot because the journey to try and max out the score is fun for me. The idea that you only have a limited amount of lines before the kill screen to get there, and trying to maximize your tetrises and stacking optimally and being able to burn efficiently and manipulating DAS its all great stuff. What I dont like is anything beyond that, where hypertapping is essential to make any progress. I think its great how people are pushing the game to insane heights with hypertapping but I don't care to get into it myself. Also I don't want carpal tunnel for a dumb game

So for me, my goal is to one day max out, after that I'm probably done with it.

What are your thoughts on TGM1? You mentioned TGM2 and 3 but skipped that one haha. 

I'd love to get into TGM2 but its a bit tricky to get the hardware, would probably have to emulate that one. It does look like a fun implementation of Tetris.

[Sumez | 2,951]

1 hour ago, BortLicensePlate said:

I think he means the picture of the box art on the OP.

Is this the picture you're thinking of?

It's linked to some URL on "lh3.googleusercontent.com" that gives a 403 permission denied when you try to access it.

Whatever it requires you to be logged into to see it, I am not.

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

3 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Is this the picture you're thinking of?

It's linked to some URL on "lh3.googleusercontent.com" that gives a 403 permission denied when you try to access it.

Whatever it requires you to be logged into to see it, I am not.

Yup. I am seeing the box art for the nes game, no error for me. That's odd

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

It's great and I don't usually care for puzzle games. I love the simplicity of how easy it is to pick up and play, but it takes a lot of work to become good at it. Tetris is like the SMB of puzzle games. 10/10. 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

12 hours ago, docile tapeworm said:

should i join ti-83 in getting a genital piercing?

I don't have any context to work with, but I'm going to go ahead and say yes.

[RH | 4,903]

I'm also going to add that though I rated this a personal 8, collectively and in regards to game design and overall importance, it's a rare, true example of a 10.  What I mean by that is Reed has kind of given a relative, personal scale to rate games by, so my personal rating is an 8. As a game in the pantheon of games, Tetris is a remarkable title that will no doubt stick around for years, and remain relevant.  It's a game that transcends graphics and is fun, no matter how old or young you are, or how much technology progresses.

Tetris is an amazing, master class example of perfect game design. It's extremely accessible, easy to learn, hard to master.  You can play it for hours, or maybe just a game or two for 15 minutes.  You can be casual about playing it, or super-hardcore.  Basic strategies can work for anyone and can help you go farther in the game, where as serious players can learn the depths of stacking blocks and specific patterns to perfect their gameplay.

IMHO, it's up there with the Rubik's Cube and Chess in game design.

Edited February 12, 2021 by RH

[noiseredux | 232]

Tetris, to me, is "video games" distilled to its purest sense. It's a desert island game. And I think the fact that no matter how many other games I play, T99 remains my most played Switch game (by a margin of like 100 hours) speaks volumes. So yeah, 10/10.

[TDIRunner | 2,740]

It would be interesting if everyone who voted who mention which version of Tetris is their go to version.

If I were to play it today, I would probably grab one of the NES versions.  However, whenever I think about Tetris, my mind still goes to the Game Boy version which was the first version I ever played, and probably the version that I have the most time with.  

[Tulpa | 3,500]

6 hours ago, Sumez said:

Is this the picture you're thinking of?

It's linked to some URL on "lh3.googleusercontent.com" that gives a 403 permission denied when you try to access it.

Whatever it requires you to be logged into to see it, I am not.

Tell your browser to

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Easy 10. One of the greatest video games ever created.

[mbd39 | 2,020]

17 hours ago, peg said:

I'm not sure what my top 10 games of all time list would look like, but I know that Tetris would be in there.  I've been playing on and off for years, both the NES version and to a lesser extent the Gameboy version.

 

One of my goals for this year is to finally hit 1 million points on the NES version, my current PBs are 813K for level 18 start and 590K for 19 start.  Dunno how far off I am from doing 1 Mil, but I'm going to keep trying for it.

Nice. My pb is 566k with a level 15 start and over 400k with a level 18 start.

I hit a wall with level 19 though. I can barely even make one Tetris.