After the adrenaline, wheelie filled world of Enduro Racer we need a come down, and what better game to take with us to our quiet corner than the one resting at Number #49 in the Your Sinclair Top 100, which is Alexey Pajitnov’s classic Tetris.
Tetris is the game that quite possibly everybody on the face of this planet knows, even if they have never seen or played it. Though most will associate it with being the staple game with the original Nintendo Gameboy, few possibly know that it has also appeared on numerous other machines throughout its life, including the ZX Spectrum. Its official release (there were many clones) was handled by Mirrorsoft back in 1988, programmed by Peter Jones and the music being handled by the fantastic David Whittaker [listen to that here].
For those of you just leaving your caves that haven’t heard of Tetris, the rules are simple. A shape, consisting of 4 squares, falls from the top of the screen towards the bottom. You can move and also rotate this shape constantly – by 90 degrees each turn – until it makes contact with a) the bottom of the screen or b) another shape. Your aim is to make a solid line, at which point this line (or lines if you’re that good) will vanish, and your playing area will become that bit bigger for you to continue you manipulation of shapes and to make more solid lines. This then carries on until you reach the top of the screen at which point it’s game over. It’s extremely simple to pick up and very hard to put down.
This ZX Spectrum version is rather enjoyable; the gameplay, graphics and sound are delivered well from both Peter and David, and you’re getting rather good conversion of Tetris on our Sinclair machines here. However, my only gripe is whereas on the Gameboy when your score got higher the game became faster, here on the Spectrum version I didn’t observe that happening. Still this is only a minor issue and I can’t let this ruin the whole package.
Tetris on the ZX Spectrum looks, sounds and plays surprisingly well, and I’d recommend loading this up to give your minds a few minutes rest occasionally.
Originally published July 10, 2016. Updated May 21, 2023.
