OS/2 Tetris Clones- by Jonathon Reason

I remember Tetris with trepidation. A girlfriend of mine had broken her leg and to stave of the boredom of my bringing her endless bunches of grapes and sympathy she borrowed her eight year old daughter's gameboy. Loaded of course with the ubiquitous Tetris. After one day she was ready to throw the thing out the window in sheer frustration. After a week, she showed me the meaning of 'compulsive addiction'. And after a month she was hell to live with, but she had beaten her daughter's previously unassailable score.

I found four OS/2 versions of Tetris on hobbes. They are: Sirtet v1.0, STrs v1.22, Tetris v1.01, and Columns v1.2.

* * *

Sirtet v1.0 by John Lisek (Freeware).

This version of Tetris (gif 6.3k) suffers from one major drawback. For some reason, on my system at least, the bricks are over-square. This makes the size of them change radically when rotating the bricks to fit gaps. Some of you may look at this and rise to the challenge that it provides. I did not. For me it made this one very difficult to play. This can be tuned under the Game->Skill menu.

In fact, Sirtet is quite configurable (gif 6.5k). You can select which shapes of bricks are dropped and change the background colour scheme, as well as turn off the (very annoying) sound. It is also possible to select the start speed and level. This is the only Tetris type OS/2 game reviewed that has sizable windows. Stretching the play window to make it thinner and taller may improve the way the game looks to you.

The playing area is not very tall so the game appears very quick. Again, this may be just what you are looking for.

SCORE: 3/5

* * *

STris v1.22 by Rene Straub (Cardware--use it, send Rene a postcard).

This is more like it. Stris is nice, gentle and sedate, and you have the option of turning on a grid to help guide the pieces home. There is also an option to change the colour palettes (gif 8.5k) for the bricks, but not the background.

This version seems to be in Beta, and the user can not yet define the gameplay keys, but the option is there on the Game menu to be implemented at some future date. I couldn't rotate the bricks at first, because I was used to using the 5 on the number pad and for some reason this version uses the 8. Of course, this makes no difference once you get used to it.

Again, the start level and speed are user selectable, as well as the sound. And despite its ease of play at the low levels STris can get quite challenging at the higher levels.

SCORE 4/5

* * *

Tetris v1.01 by Jim Garrison (Freeware).

I like games with nice graphics (gif 10k), and as much as you can get graphics in Tetris, these ones are nice. Little bitmaps appear on the blocks, improving the look of the playfield, although they don't make up for the appalling sound effects.

Somehow this implementation was the easiest of the four to play and the one I enjoyed the most. More experienced Tetrisians who favour more of a challenge will not, I suspect, agree with me since it is a bit on the simple side--even for Tetris. There are only three levels of skill to select from--beginner, advanced and expert. Other than that, turning the sound and next piece display on or off are the only options.

SCORE 4/5

* * *

Columns v1.2 by Marko Masek (Freeware).

I've left this one till last because I really like it. The author, Marko Masek, has taken Tetris and modified it slightly so that only vertical bars (gif 3.5k) drop down. The bars are each 3 blocks high and the blocks are of varying colour. Rather than rotate the blocks in mid air to fit the space, the user moves the colours within the column. The columns are then dropped so that 3 or more blocks of the same colour line up either vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Sounds dreadfully complex, but in reality it's dead simple--and great fun.

The graphics here aren't fabulous, the whole thing has a 2D feel to it. Once you get the hang of this one though, it's just as addictive as regular Tetris ever was. Watch out!

SCORE 4/5

* * *

There isn't a clear winner in this mini review. They are all playable games, all fairly true to the original, even Columns is still just Tetris by another name. They all give you a degree of control over skill level and have high score features. If you need a time waster, are a compulsive addict from years ago or have a game-challenged machine that just can't handle the demands of Avarice or SimCity, one of them might be for you. But they're not worth breaking a leg for.

* Sirtet v1.0
Author: John Lisek

* STrs v1.22
Author: Rene Straub
Registration: Cardware (send Rene a postcard)

* Tetris v1.01
Author: Jim Garrison
Registration: Freeware

* Columns v1.2.
Author: Marko Macek

Jonathan Reason is a full time professional actor and as such has plenty of time to play with his computer. Casting Directors feel free to e-mail.

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