Tetris DS [DS]

If anything sold the Game Boy all those years ago, it was Tetris. The original block puzzle game migrated from home computers to the portable and became an instant classic. So this reemergence on the DS isn't any sort of surprise, but the vitality with which it reasserts puzzle dominance almost is.

Serious fans might squawk about the many changes made to the core game for alternate modes, but at least the standard Tetris is available and intact. Granted, it's decorated with some needless images of Mario and the Nintendo character stable -- we'd rather not be distracted by a Koopa while dropping blocks, thanks -- but the actual play is exactly as you'd expect.

The alternate modes, which you'd expect to be throwaways, also deserve their share of play time. "Touch" piles a load of blocks up to the sky; by dragging and tapping with the stylus, they can be moved and rotated until lines have been destroyed and the entire pile is gone. Better touch response would make this a killer mode, as getting a block to rotate the way you like can be... touchy.

With no such limitation, "Catch" stands out among the new modes; based vaguely on Nintendo's classic game Metroid, players control a single block floating in a vertical corridor. As other blocks fall, the player's block can be rotated to catch them at any angle. The goal is to build at least a 4x4 structure, which can then be detonated to destroy the caged metroids falling with the blocks.

While the entire game is laced with tributes to Nintendo's past, often in a slightly unwelcome way, the Metroid style in Catch works well, and the mini-game turns into Tetris-plus-action, which works surprisingly well. As the fall of blocks gets faster, there's a struggle to place them properly (since you have four possible surfaces instead of one) while staying alive amongst other dangers.

The other modes -- Mission, Puzzle, and Push (a multiplayer mode) -- also put their own spin on the classic, and come out looking justified. Push is where players clear lines to push their opponent towards a line of death, and it makes the best use two screens, as well. Other modes should have followed suit; with all that real estate, it is frustrating to have the top screen occupied by superfluous fluff during the standard game. With only the lower screen to play with, levels above 10 become incredibly difficult.

Regardless, Tetris DS is wickedly addictive -- just like the original -- and the wifi element works extremely well. It's an irresistible package, and a win for puzzle fans.