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Good: It's Tetris:and it's online

Bad: The infinite spin glitch

Recommended if you like: Um:Tetris

There's no need to go into the history of Tetris. If you're familiar enough with videogames that you're reading reviews, you've definitely played the puzzle classic. Now it's on the DS, with an excellent online mode and all the great gameplay you've known and loved for decades.

Single player is divided into six different modes: Standard, Push, Touch, Puzzle, Mission and Catch. Standard is the classic Tetris, requiring you to assemble the blocks in such a fashion as to form a straight line. At this point, the completed line will disappear. It's almost the exact same game you played on the original Game Boy. The only significant addition is the "Hold" square, which allows you to store a single block until you need it. Unfortunately, a glitch is present in this mode that allows you to simply keep spinning a block, which makes it possible to take all the time you want to find a place to put it. It's not a big deal early on, but it pretty much takes away any challenge once the blocks start falling fast.

Push is the same concept as Standard, although you're competing against a CPU on the bottom screen. Your blocks fall from the top, while his comes up from the bottom. The objective is to "push" the mass of blocks down past a designated line on your opponent's side.

Touch is the only mode that really utilizes the stylus. You can shift blocks around and rotate them by double-tapping, and your objective is to arrange them in a way so that the blocks above them can fall. It's worth trying once or twice, but seems to have been thrown in just to utilize the touchscreen.

Puzzle presents you with a selection of blocks that you must choose in order to clear a pre-determined block setup. Mission is Zelda-inspired, and requires you to complete an objective before you run out of hearts. In Catch, you control a plus-signed shaped block and attach it to other falling blocks. After forming a 4x4 square, you can detonate it with the X button to get a bunch of points. While it's possible to rotate the core, this mode is difficult and frustrating due to the fact that you can't control which way the falling blocks are facing.

All of the levels feature NES-inspired backgrounds, including Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Balloon Fight and more. It really adds a lot of personality to the game, and should give old-school fans a bit of nostalgia. All of the sound is solid, although I wish it would have featured the old Tetris theme.

By far, the best feature is online play. You can do one-on-one or go against 3 other people. In the 4-person game, you can use Mario Kart-esque items, which really make it fast-paced and fun. I've yet to experience a single problem connecting or finding opponents, and this great mode ensures a huge amount of replayability. This should be in every DS owner's library.

Graphics: B

Sound: A-

First Play: A-

Last Play: A

Gameplay: A-

Overall: 90% A-