TETRIS EFFECT
Want to come over and Tetris and chill?
Few games are genuinely flawless but Tetris is, frankly, perfect. No matter the format or platform, it’s hard to ruin Russian game designer Alexey Pajitnov’s elegant design, and in PS VR, with Lumines’ maestro Tetsuya Mizuguchi at the helm, it’s simply the best version we’ve ever had. Fundamentally Tetris Effect is the same block puzzler we’ve all played. Misshapen ‘tetrominoes’ fall from the top of the screen to the bottom; manipulating them into lines clears them from the screen, awarding you points and a snug feeling of accomplishment.
Tetris taps into a fundamental desire to organise and clear a space. Played in PS VR, with music, sound, and graphics affecting and reacting to your performance, it becomes a transcendental experience. Tetris Effect offers you a dark space to enter, then pounds you with puzzle blocks and massages you with musical beats that purr through the DualShock’s rumble until you submit to its unique world. It’s an emotional experience. A manipulative one, but affecting nonetheless.
SIGHT AND SOUND
Leaking Lumines and Rez influences into the Tetris template, Mizuguchi-san leads you down a rabbit hole of psychedelic puzzling marathons, challenges, and tests of skill and nerve. This game is more than just Tetris backed up with a flashy Las Vegas light and sound show, though, it’s an experience.
As main mode Journey’s name infers, Mizuguchi-san’s take on Tetris is a trip in the truest sense – you travel across the sense of a New York skyline to soft jazz, creating your own soundtrack as each tetromino lands to a different piano chord. You enter a rainforest, water dripping from leaves audibly dappling as you match lines of blocks. There are trips through abstract shapes and a kaleidoscope of gleaming Christmas baubles. Light fizzes over, behind, and around you, enveloping you in its artistry.
In its master’s hands the game alters pace and tempo. As the music rises and the beat increases the blocks come faster; as it subsides they slow, often within the same themed world. You’re given space to breathe and think, adjust and plan. In PS VR it’s perfection.
BEAT IT
There’re new ways to play Tetris too. Zone is a new addition – the Zone meter fills more quickly if you manage four-line Tetrises, and tapping ip or activates the mode, slowing time and enabling you to clear the screen. Ideally you’ll plan ahead, setting yourself up to cascade line upon line to build up a high score multiplier. Or you can save Zone up and use it when the tempo increases, gaining
“POUNDS YOU WITH PUZZLE BLOCKS AND MASSAGES YOU WITH MUSICAL BEATS.”
respite from the faster flow of tetrominoes. It’s a simple idea, but one that makes mastering Tetris just a little more fun.
Beyond the worlds found in Journey, Tetris Effect’s best ways to play come from a set of Effects modes. Each offers a unique challenge. You can opt for classic Tetris, a relaxed marathon mode that challenges you to reach the highest score you can within 150 lines, or dive into some of the puzzler’s more inventive ways to play… All Clear had me hooked for hours, and simply asks you to clear a screen of blocks using only a set number and type of tetrominoes. It’s the closest thing to a classic timed puzzle, and it’s Tetris catnip.
Other addictions include Purify (where you have to destroy ‘infected’ blocks and stop them spreading across your screen) and Mystery (in which blocks come at random speeds, shapes, and sizes, including massive squares that fill the screen). Effects mode shows dev’s playful side. The many variants on offer break apart what makes elements of Tetris such a time-sink, and expands on them in unique and evocative ways.
VR ESSENTIAL
Tetris Effect works best in PlayStation VR. Its audio and lighting cues channel your concentration. It can also feel more responsive and smoother than playing in the ‘real’ world. Outside virtual reality the game is equally captivating and stands as PS4’s best puzzler, but you’re missing out on a virtual world of fun if you don’t play inside a headset.
VERDICT
Tetris Effect and PS VR go together like ham and eggs. It’s the perfect pairing of tech and game design. Don’t have a headset? You can still join in but you’re missing out on the definitive way to play. Ian Dean