I remember playing this every day at the arcade. We were talking earlier about Tetris, but this was immersion on another level. I saw my life in those graphics and understood the universe. Sadly, after one month the machine must’ve broken down, because it was shipped away for repairs, never to return again…
Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game from an urban legend. The legend describes the game as part of a government-run crowdsourced psychology experiment based in Portland, Oregon. Gameplay supposedly produced intense psychoactive and addictive effects in the player. These few publicly staged arcade machines were said to have been visited periodically by men in black for the purpose of data-mining the machines and analyzing these effects. Supposedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines then disappeared from the arcade market.
It’s a fun tale though, and there are some good articles and video essays on it.
I really liked Tetris DS. The retro NES graphics and remixed music was a fantastic love letter to those old games, and the songs were pretty damn good to boot. It was also the version of Tetris I was best at, for some reason I was a lot better with the old, flat, firm DS Phat buttons more than any other console. I forgot what level I got to in Endless but it was probably over 500. Multiplayer was also a hoot, with powerups and you could play with 9 other people that didn’t even need the game to play. (Remember those days when you didn’t have to all have a copy of the game to play together? What a concept!)
This, 100%. While GB Tetris and NES Tetris were some of the first games I remember playing, Tetris DS was one of the first Tetris games I loved. And you’ve absolutely got a point that the original DS does best; the mushy D-pad on the DS Lite just plays it so much worse in my experience. (I feel good about it on my New 2DS XL though other than the either very soft image or very small image I get from it though)
Its basically a perfect game. It never feels dated and has one of the most horribly catchy songs ever created by man. Its weird that it’s so fun, its like as simple as you can really boil down a game, its literally just arranging blocks into lines. But it just clicks with the human brain on some deep level.
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around T spins. High level tetris play is absurd to me. I have no idea how people can make sense of it. Watching it makes sense, but playing it is entirely a whole other ballpark.
I think my favorite versions of tetris are a homebrew version made for the gba called apotris and the newest tetris effect because it has pretty colors lol. Oh actually I also like tetris 99. The concept is really neat. I also like the themes available in that one. You can probably see a trend here. I like the pretty colors lol
I’m glad they keep iterating on it though. I think there’s a lot of “classic” games that don’t really need to be…revamped or changed. They’re good the way they are, but people just want more of what made the existing games good. So many timed companies try to reinvent the wheel when it didn’t really need to be remade (the halo series comes to mind. RIP)
At the risk of going slightly off topic, one puzzle type game similar to tetris that I got completely absorbed into is lumines. Have any of you played that title? I’m curious how tetris experts would compare the two. In my eyes lumines seemed a lot more simple in design compared to tetris. But I have no idea. I sunk 60 hours so far into lumines which is probably rookie numbers, but I’ve never gotten so into a puzzle game like this before.
I played Tetris for the first time on my friend’s Gameboy back in the 90’s. I didn’t get addicted at the time and I’m still not, but I do play Tetris 99 on my switch occasionally.
Overall, it’s an amazing game. It can be learned in minutes but takes years to master.
I love Telltale’s stuff, but they’re a bit hit or miss for me. I really liked The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands, but really didn’t care for The Walking Dead sequels and Batman. A lot of companies tried to replicate what they had but they never had writing as good.
That said, Telltale really needed some alternate endings. There’s only so much “X will remember this” I can read before I realize how little my actions matter.
I have Tales from the Borderlands and Poker Night in my library, but I just can’t bring myself to play them. Knowing they’re just basically limping along really makes me not want to get invested in characters I know probably won’t get the resolution they deserve.
Tales from the Borderlands is a finished story, and it’s amazing! Please at least try the first episode, it has some of my fondest and over the top gaming memories!
I totally agree with you. They had something special with the wolf among us. I was very excited when they announced the sequel, but sad to hear your news about firing the team.
Tales from the Borderland would be on second spot for me. Following the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Batman. But for the for the last three, I really don’t remember much anymore.
They went bankrupt but got picked up by another company years later. They got a big chunk of the original team back on board, then they made The Expanse game, then they fired most of the team again.
Tetris Worlds on PC was one of my favorites — A surreal, story-based Tetris with interesting twists on the gameplay, and the first Guideline Tetris game, setting in stone what “official” Tetris would look and act like even now. (Some love that, some hate it, I’m nowhere near a high enough level player to care either way and just like a cool looking Tetris game.)
My first round of Tetris was on an old DMG my late stepfather owned. It was my first time even handling one of those old bricks, but I cherished it. I don’t know what in my young brain it hit, but something just felt right. That thing got lost somewhere in packing up the house after his passing, probably still had that exact cart slotted.
I don’t think I played it for years after that, until I got my OG Xbox, with the double pack Clone Wars/Tetris Worlds. If I wasn’t running around being a squeaker on Counter-Strike or MechWarrior, I was playing Tetris. Weekends spent gripping the Duke, trying to get as far as I could.
Around 1990 my parents would take us to the mall and say “meet back here in 1 hour.” I would immediately go to the store that had a Gameboy display and play Tetris for the entire hour, often losing track of time and getting in trouble.
This might be the earliest game that is linked to my existence, as my mother bought a Game Boy and played this while pregnant :). Later on I played the same cartridge on my first gaming console: a green Game Boy Color. I cannot fathom the amount of hours I’ve played this game in my life.
When going to University, I found my Game Boy Color in a closet. After swapping out the batteries I realized that it still worked perfectly and I played it throughout Uni, sometimes even during lectures. I remember all my friends being excited when I got close to breaking my personal record, it was a really fun time.
Of the recent versions I really liked Tetris Effect (even if only for the phenomenal trailer). Tetris 99 is also pretty cool, but I’m really bad at competitive tetris so I never even got close to winning.
For a long time I thought I didn’t like Tetris very much. Tetris 99, Tetris Effect and Puyo Puyo Tetris made me reconsider that. Turns out I just needed a push, and now I occasionally spend hours on the stuff, gladly.
I think excluding rhythm games, Tetris must be one of the only game that gets me into “the zone”.
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