Tetris and Lost Relics

Tetris

Platform: Game Boy

Developer: Bullet-Proof Software (original concept by Alexey Pajitnov)

N.A. Release: August 1989

The world-encompassing reach of the Tetris name is undeniable. Unfortunately, the wider a popular concept is spread, the shallower its real impact tends to become over time. The extraordinary stories of Alexey Pajitnov's conception of the game and Nintendo's battle to secure the rights to make the first blockbuster rendition of it still exist, but are long buried under sedimentary layers of adaptations, ports and free online knock-offs.

You can even play whatever this is, available now on the official Tetris.com website!

But I'm not going to tell those stories; they're already out there if you're willing to search. Instead, I'd like to tell you about the one Tetris game pak that would mean the world to me to have.

I never knew my great-uncle Jim that well, and he passed away early enough in my childhood that I don't have a great store of memories from which to draw of him. But there's one image I saw much too often to ever forget: whenever he and my great-aunt Rose visited my grandmother's house, he would sit in the same chair at the bar, beneath the overhead light, and huddle over Tetris on Game Boy.

I do mean huddle. He never actually held the system, as far as I can remember. It was always resting on the bar in front of him, with one of his fingers on the D-Pad and another poised over the B and A buttons. And that's how he would stay, tapping away with the intense confidence of a scientist at the helm of his nuclear powered robot.

The Game Boy almost never held anything else but Tetris. His children had tried to buy him other games to play like Qix and Super Mario Land 2, but I only know this because he let me play them one of the rare times I visited his home. He barely touched them himself, if he ever did at all.

The picture definition of "iconic."

No, great-uncle Jim's Game Boy was very much a Tetris-only machine, and the severity to which it had to bear this dedication still amazes me. The small grips that are on every Game Boy's directional pad were worn off completely, the entire pad itself somewhat sunken into the hole from which it protruded. The vibrant red of the B and A buttons were faded to a medium-rare pink in the center. This was all from the heat and friction of my great-uncle's large fingers over the many hours he spent playing a single cartridge.

Best of all, there was always a small strip of paper just below the screen, sealed into place with a piece of scotch tape: his high score. Occasionally changing, it was worn by that Game Boy like a badge of honor and always possessing a number I could never dream of getting close to.

It's not that great-uncle Jim was all-consumed with Tetris. He always took time to talk with the family, and he had no qualms about letting me play with his Game Boy once he had finished his current game—which often took an especially long time to an impatient 7-year-old but is something I can look in awe upon today.

If I had known back then how fondly I'd look back on that gray piece of plastic, I might have it today. Unfortunately, my childhood self never asked what had ever happened to the Game Boy and its treasured game after my great-uncle passed away. In fact, it wasn't until last year when I actually contacted my great-aunt, still living, and asked her if she had kept it with her all these years. She had not. She had given it away to another child whom she does not recall.

I wish I could run my fingers against that strangely smooth d-pad, or for the life of me remember that last high score and see how it stacks up on the Internet today. Sometimes I wonder if some kid now will feel this way in 20 years about an iPad he watched a loved one play Angry Birds on. Yes, I know that sounds silly now, but all I know is in a world full of so many ways, there's one game of Tetris I'll never be able to play again.  

Professor Layton and a Gentleman's Patience

Professor Layton and the Last Specter

Platform: Nintendo DS

Developer: Level-5

N.A. Release: October 2011

A stereotypical gamer action that has always annoyed me is the way some will complain about any text and semblance of story building a game, demanding they get back to “the action” as soon as possible. I'm willing to hold some empathy if the game is nothing but bullets and explosions and suddenly wants to derail that for a small Shakespearean performance, but if a game is actually trying to establish a certain atmosphere or depth throughout its course, then its dialogue and recorded contributions are worth more than a spastic mash of the continue button.

Of all things, I thought puzzle games would be safe from this knee-jerk criticism. They're about as cerebral an exercise as you can get on a screen, and if a player is willing to take a hefty number of minutes considering the answer to a puzzle, surely an interesting plot would be worth the time as well.

Note the lack of stoners and dog.

Professor Layton and the Last Specter, as with the other games in the series, loosely frames its puzzles within an overarching mystery that reveals itself in pieces along the way. Kotaku's Stephen Totilo, in a recent “quick impressions” article, expressed his distaste with the way Last Specter establishes its plot:

“The problem is that the game opens with long cutscenes, a mistake in handheld gaming that I thought was exclusive to to the PSP and, 17 minutes into my first session, I only found one puzzle. I'm not playing Layton for the story. I want more puzzles, and I wanted them right away.”

I have no ill will toward Mr. Totilo, and his impressions are valid if this is what he felt at the time. However, I would like to offer a gentlemanly counterpoint.

I can clearly see how someone would be frustrated by cutscenes in a portable game if they had, say, limited playtime on the bus. The surge of phone-based games such as Angry Birds cater to this desire for a pick-up-play-and-quickly-stuff experience, and there is certainly no shame in that.

But to say that long cutscenes are a “mistake” for portable games that wish to employ them seems too broad of a statement. There are a great many people who play their DS and PSP at home for long periods of time. Each system possesses both quick-play games and lengthy RPGs that sink time into story. Both kinds receive loyal audiences and there seems to be no reason to decry one over the other.

A cutscene about reading? The horror!

To take the story out of Professor Layton would leave you with little more than an interactive puzzle book. Some people would like this, of course, and there are games out there exactly like that. But I'm not sure many Layton fans would want to see this happen to their series.

There is a unique and extremely charming style—both aesthetically and through its stories and characters—that sets the Layton series apart and helps drive its play. Is it always perfect? It may have a couple dull points, sure, as many stories do. But I doubt the majority of people who enjoy the series would be willing to drop it all to get to the puzzles quicker. It's not like Level-5 is just hacking this stuff up for filler. When your developer is working with the world-renowned Studio Ghibli, perhaps they know what they're doing.

I'm not so conceited to say that the mysteries of Professor Layton would appeal to everyone. That is a matter of personal taste and such criticisms should be respected. But to complain about the mere presence of a story over the actual substance of it, that... well, it causes an ache inside that makes me want to hug a book. Our world becomes increasingly geared toward instant gratification, but sometimes we need an English gentleman to remind us how to savor our moments.