Review
From Russia With(out) Love
by Craig Grannell (November 12th, 2010 at 1:22 pm)
Game: iPentris. Publisher: Rarebyte. Price: 59p/€0,79/99¢. Buy the game or download the demo
Due to its simplicity, Tetris has stood the test of time. However, the game started life as the digital equivalent of creator Alexey Pajitnov’s favourite pentominoes game. He found it dull and games were over too quickly, and so through rapid iterations, he replaced the shapes with tetrominoes, made them fall into a well, and had solid lines vanish.
Presumably in an attempt to avoid being sued by The Tetris Company, iPentris takes the basics of Tetris but replaces its shapes with the pentominoes Pajitnov was so fond of, and it doesn’t really work.
"Nothing like Tetris" - Rarebyte legal team
The problem with iPentris is that pentominoes have many more variations and combinations and far more awkward bits than tetrominoes, making it far more unlikely that you’ll have successive pieces that are possible to slot together. This means that regardless of your Tetris skills, your well in iPentris will soon be full of holes. iPentris seemingly acknowledges this drawback by providing a bomb icon on completing a level; when tapped, the bomb removes every piece on the screen.
Rather than being a nice bonus, the iPentris bomb seems an admission of a fundamental gameplay flaw. In some ways, this is a pity, because the game looks nice and the controls are pretty good. But while the gameplay starts off as an interesting and more challenging spin on Tetris, it soon becomes frustrating, unrewarding and unforgiving.
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