Tetris - From Russia With Love

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Tetris - From Russia With Love

Posted by simoniker on Thursday February 12, 2004 @04:39AM from the suitable-icon dept.

basilpronoun writes "BBC News has an article about seminal puzzle game Tetris and its inventor Alexey Pajitnov, timed to coincide with further UK screenings of the documentary 'Tetris - From Russia With Love'. There's also an interview with documentary director Magnus Temple in which he comments on Pajitnov: 'He had to be persuaded to get involved. You can imagine what it's like. He invents a game almost 20 years ago and it's the only thing people want to talk to him about even though he's still a professional games designer'."

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Why only Tetris by MMaestro · 2004-02-12 04:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Its to be expected that people only want to talk to him about Tetris. When a developer makes a really, really good game, most people like to talk about him in a good way. In this case its Tetris. In other cases, like in John Carmack's, they most likely will talk about the original Doom. Not the Quake series because the Quake series didn't have as much as an impact as Doom. Simple at that.
1. Re:Why only Tetris by Divide+By+Zero · 2004-02-12 05:40 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  More to the point, what else has he DONE? I've never heard his name other than in conjunction with Tetris. It's like talking to Don Johnson about Miami Vice. Yeah, he's done other roles, he had a single, but they all* kinda sucked. So every* interview he does, somebody has to ask a question about Miami Vice or Tubbs or pastel t-shirts and suit jackets.
  
  * - pending correction from anal AC
  
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  Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
2. Re:Why only Tetris by simoniker · 2004-02-12 06:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I think Pajitnov definitely didn't help his cause of only being known for a certain product by producing a lot of other '...tris' games - I particularly remember Hatris, which is a pretty wacky idea conceptually.
  
  However, he did design Pandora's Box for Microsoft, which is a wonderful example of a classical puzzle game (not Tetris-like, more jigsaw-like, but with much more complexity and 3D puzzles of many kinds), which is, imho, very under-rated.
Thank You! by Pamplemousse · 2004-02-12 04:48 · Score: 4, Funny

thanks to him my brothers and i are still allowed to play video games because my mom got hocked on tetris:) many happy hours of game play came about because of him, we will never be able to pay off the debt...
1. Re:Thank You! by addaon · 2004-02-12 05:46 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  It takes guts to say, on slashdot, that your mom got hocked.
  
  Regardless of what it means.
  
  --
  
  I've had this sig for three days.
Tetris - Slashdot by vasqzr · 2004-02-12 04:57 · Score: 5, Informative

Maybe there should be a Tetris section

History of Tetris

Tetris related to dreams

Tetris AI webcam system

Micro-tetris

Tetris is hard
1. Re:Tetris - Slashdot by GigsVT · 2004-02-12 05:56 · Score: 2
  
  The puzzle game icon already looks like a tetris piece, how much closer than that can you get?
  
  --
  I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Yes; but can it... by p4ul13 · 2004-02-12 05:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

run Tetris?
How many platforms have a version of tetris, not to mention all the various variants of the game?
The article mentions:
Available on more than 60 platforms, including handheld games machines and wrist watches
I'd be curious to see the list that they used for that figure. I have a suspicion that this is refering to official releases of the game. If the various shareware and freeware versions were considered the number might be much much higher..

--
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Alexey Pajitnov by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:15 · Score: 5, Funny

He invents a game almost 20 years ago and it's the only thing people want to talk to him about even though he's still a professional games designer.

Yeah, but what does he say about Tetris?
20 years later and still popular by Tetrad_of_doom · 2004-02-12 05:15 · Score: 4, Informative

With games continually getting more complicated, you can still find thousands of people playing Tetris online (at least on XBox Live). It is a great argument for simplicity in game design.

One thing did bug me about the article:

"..creating solid lines out of rapidly descending T-shaped on-screen blocks.

Only about 1/7 of the blocks that you see in Tetris will be T-shaped, and there are some variations of Tetris in which the proportion is less.
What else he Alexey Pajitnov done by GerritHoll · 2004-02-12 06:36 · Score: 5, Informative
What else has Alexey Pajitnov done, you ask? Here is the complete list
- Project Gotham Racing 2 (2003), Microsoft
- Rampage Puzzle Attack (2001), Midway Games
- Tetris Worlds (2001), THQ Inc.
- Microsoft Puzzle Collection Entertainment Pack (2000), Swing! Entertainment Media AG
- The Next Tetris: Online Edition (2000), Crave Entertainment, Inc.
- Pandora's Box (1999), Microsoft
- Knight Moves (1996), Spectrum Holobyte, Inc.
- Breakthru! (1994), Spectrum Holobyte, Inc.
- El-Fish (1993), Maxis Software Inc.
- Super Tetris (1991), Spectrum Holobyte, Inc.
- Faces (1990), Spectrum Holobyte, Inc.
- Welltris (1989), Spectrum Holobyte, Inc.
- Tetris (original) (1986)
Conclusion: He hasn't done much beyond Tetris indeed. Apart from El-Fish, Knight Moves, Pandora's Box, Puzzle Collection, Rampage Puzzle and Gotham Racing, they're all Tetris variants.
But isn't Tetris more than enough to contribute to Humanity?
1. Re:What else he Alexey Pajitnov done by simoniker · 2004-02-12 07:16 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Actually, a number of those credits are in the 'Special Thanks' section - notably Project Gotham Racing 2 and Rampage Puzzle Attack, which Pajitnov was uninvolved with, but obviously had fans on the development team.
Torrent by Blublu · 2004-02-12 07:23 · Score: 4, Informative

Here is the torrent for that film.

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meh
Tetris Theme Re-Mixed by TubeSteak · 2004-02-12 07:27 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.ocremix.org
Perhaps the most famous remix is by DJ Venom & opens with the line:
"Lets play some Tetris motherfuckers"

Too bad its not on that site.

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[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
1. Re:Tetris Theme Re-Mixed by ziggy_zero · 2004-02-12 14:14 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I guess it depends on "which" Tetris theme you're talking about (since it had a few you could choose from) but the most popular one is actually based off of a Russian folk song, Korobieniki. The band Ozma did a cool rock version of it a few years back. I would link to their mp3.com site where you could get it, but....yeah. I think you can find it on p2p networks though.
  
  --
  I belong to the ______ generation.
Tetris - From Russia with Love? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 07:48 · Score: 2, Funny

I've always liked Tetris - The Spy Who Loved Me better. I think we can all agree that Roger Moore was the best Tetris.
Great Multiplayer Tetris by CaptainFoo · 2004-02-12 10:30 · Score: 3, Informative

I have been a huge Tetris fan for many years, but the last year I have only played Multris. It sports a rather nifty multiplayer mode, and there are competition at all levels, some of the guys are just unbelivable. I guess my girlfriend would have been a lot happier if the high score lists hadn't been there though...

Some say Tetris is dead, but for me it's actually the only game I come back to time and again. Tetris forever!