When we are listing the most important and influential games of all time we cannot forget Tetris. This legendary title has accompanied video games throughout almost their entire history and is still as fun and engaging as when it was created in a Moscow office in the mid-80s. But despite its ubiquity, there are many who don’t know its history nor the way it has evolved over the decades. It is here that Digital Eclipse and its Golden Master Series collection comes into play to preserve the first versions of this title – including some that had never left Japan – and tell us everything we need to know about one of the most perfect games in the world in the interactive museum of Tetris Forever.
I’m a big fan of the work this studio is doing with this series that some describe as “the Criterion collection of video games.” Thanks to them we already have preserved the different versions of
If you already saw Gaming Historian’s excellent documentary o the historically inaccurate Apple movie They surely think they know the history of this legendary game. How it was created by a humble Russian programmer and the struggle of several interested parties in the West to obtain the rights to its license. But they had probably never heard it directly from the mouths of those involved and here we have them narrating everything with all kinds of details and anecdotes that we had never heard before.
Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers are the real stars of the documentary material included in Tetris Forever. These two veterans tell with great grace and charisma the entire history of the game, from when it was invented by Pajitnov to the present day and include fantastic anecdotes. We cannot miss, for example, the things that Rogers says about his relationship with the former president of Nintendo Hiroshi Yamauchi.
But this package goes much further. Not only does it explore the beginnings of the game and the complicated intricacies of licensing and distributing a work of software created on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It also captures the evolution of gaming when the name Tetris had already become famous. We see Pajitnov turn his initial idea around with titles like Hatris
And of course, there are the games. Tetris Forever includes 15 versions of the legendary game — including a reconstruction of the original created for the Soviet computer Electronika 60, a new one called Time Warp that takes elements from past versions and Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku, a Go game for the Famicom whose story is firmly linked to that of
You may think that having a modern version in this collection there is no need to try the old and outdated ones — some of which feel slow in comparison or do not have features that we consider essential for Tetris — but they are wrong. Playing these versions gives us an important vision of how the game has evolved, of the ideas that came and those that were abandoned, of how it was adapted to different markets and how an aesthetic was created around it. Hatris y Bomblis They are also derivative and very fun experiences that are worth trying if you don’t know them.
In closing, I simply have to say that Tetris Forever It is a mandatory purchase for all video game lovers. Not only does it make available different versions of what many consider, without any irony, “the most perfect game in the world,” but it also gives them all the context necessary to understand how they came to exist.
The Gold Master Series collection is one of the most important things currently being done in the industry and we are extremely grateful to Digital Eclipse for their work on it. We can’t wait to see what the fourth installment will be.
