Those online Tetris Party tournaments won't just enhance your fearsome internet reputation -- they'll also offer Wii Points as prizes, a pretty awesome way of keeping player interest high. The first tournament kicks off December 1st, and contains four rounds, each featuring one of Tetris Party's eighteen variations. After you complete a round, the game will give you a rank and confirmation code, which you can register at the official Tetris Party tournament site. Perform strongly over all four rounds, and you could win!
Five hundred prizes are up for grabs (though how many points will be given away isn't known), and we're fairly sure this is a global contest -- there's no mention of regional restrictions in the press release. Skip past the break for start dates, end dates, and other details of the first tournament, then get practicing!
Have you taken part in any non-Wii Fit-related Wii wobbling? What did you think of the experience? Do you look forward to any future Board-compatible games?
Tetris Party on WiiWare is classic Tetris action. If you're expecting some kind of re-imagining or complete overhaul to the classic game, then you won't find it. What you will find is a very competent installment in the series, complete with several fun and exciting single-player modes and a very streamlined approach to playing online. If you're a fan of Tetris, then you're going to like what's here in Tetris Party.
It's a pretty big week for releases. On top of plenty of games available at retail, there's a couple of imports available on the Virtual Console, as well as one awaited WiiWare release (can you guess what it is?). Head past the break and start thinking about cracking open that piggy bank.
Tetris Party only reaches the North American WiiWare service today, but already Hudson has started building hype by asking us to bring it in a bunch of tournaments based on the game.
Things kick off on December 1st, when the first of four separate contests will begin, but don't just think being nimble at classic Tetris is good enough -- any of Tetris Party's 18 modes could feature in these, which could be bad news for those not equipped with a Balance Board. No word on prizes yet, though something rare and very limited edition-esque would be lovely thanks, Hudson.
Update 1: A Hudson press release just revealed Tetris Party would drop in Europe and Australia this Friday!
How can the Wii have been in stores for two years without a Tetris game? At least Hudson is compensating for the lack of the staple video game with one that is both awesome-looking and cheap. It's being joined on WiiWare by a cheapo darts game and Brain Challenge -- which was actually pretty good on the DS.
On the Virtual Console, a super old sidescroller from Sunsoft that looks like a slowed-down, more awkward Legend of Kage, and a totally cute Taito classic!
Tetris Party is out soon, which means we get to dust off our Balance Boards and play Tetris the way Tetris was always supposed to be played: by leaning and squatting. Tetris Party producer and cool hat-wearer Tony Tran has generously demoed the Balance Board mode, which looks straightforward enough: you lean to steer your tetrominoes across the screen, and squat to rotate them. The playing field is drastically reduced to allow for the imprecision of balance-based controls.
It looks quite fun, though this video did miss one thing: footage of Tony playing this mother on level 20. We suspect our own knees, weakened by a lack of exercise due to a life spent blogging, would struggle to get beyond level 5 with all that squatting.
Tetris Party is on the way to WiiWare! (As of the writing of this post, Nintendo hasn't sent out the Wii Shop updates, so it might even be out today, in which case Tetris Party is on WiiWare!)
Tetris has been around for a while, and it's changed in tiny, tiny ways. Except for a few new rules for nerds, it's still basically the same game it was when Alexey Pazhitnov was puttering around with it in his spare time. Tetris Party has some variant modes like the "Shadow" puzzle mode, but you're still dropping the same seven shapes into the same 10-block-wide field.
Has Tetris held up? Will you be ready to go back to the well (though not for Welltris) when Party hits? Ah, of course you will, so let's just talk about how amazingly wonderful Tetris continues to be!
Tetris Party, the Hudson-developed, Balance Board-supporting Tetris game with more modes than you could shake an inverted L tetramino at, will be out on Japan's WiiWare store at some point next month. Unlike most Tetris games, Hudson seems to be putting some real effort into Tetris Party, coming up with some obscure (but fun-looking) variations on just dropping some blocks.
Be prepared to pay, though: at 1,200 Wii Points, this will be one of the most expensive WiiWare titles on the market. One day, we'll sit down and calculate how much money we've spent over the past 20-odd years on different Tetris games. This will probably be followed by incessant sobbing.
Tetris has had its udders suckled dry down the years, with innumerable spin-offs, follow-ups, and twists on the original formula all taking their turn on its now-withered teat. Tetris DS remains, for this blogger, the definitive Tetris experience, but the Balance Board-compatible Tetris Party is looking extremely promising on the evidence of these first videos.
Developer Hudson seems to be drawing inspiration from other games to make dropping blocks feel fresh again -- "Shadow" mode (above) is essentially Tetris mixed with NEVES, while "Climb" mode (in the video after the break) is a bit like what would happen if Tetris got jiggy with Lemmings (or, as this is a Nintendo site, Mario vs. Donkey Kong). It works as well -- both of these modes look engaging and fun!
It's worth mentioning that the game contains classic, vanilla Tetris, and there's a video of that after the break also. You know, in case you've never seen Tetris before. Which would just be odd.
PAL regions got the first official release of the amazing pinball game Alien Crush just last year via the Virtual Console. According to the OFLC, the new WiiWare version is Australia-bound as well. Not to be too presumptuous, but this suggests a worldwide release as well. We never doubted that Hudson would make Alien Crush Returns available around the world, but it's nice to have some evidence.
Also rated: Tetris Party and something called Pit Crew Panic, another Hudson Wii game. We have no idea what that is -- some kind of racing-related thing, sure, but ... could it really be a whole game about replacing tires and such?
We now have some idea as to what gamers should expect from the title's many modes of play, though. There will be 18 different modes of play, with 10 of them supposedly being never-before-seen variations of single and multiplayer Tetris. Online modes will be titled World Battle and Friend Battle, where up to six players can take part in play simultaneously.
Aside from all of that, other modes were mentioned, including Stage Racer, Wii Balance Board Tetris Marathon, Field Climber, and Duel Space modes. We don't have any specific info on those, though, so we'll just have to wait until the game releases to spend some quality time with those modes.
We just received a press release concerning upcoming Tetris Party. It's set to grace WiiWare this fall, meaning that North American gamers will be able to pick up the title this year and not later, as we were fully expecting. Other than that, the press release doesn't offer us much else to go on.
Oh, wait, yes it does! The game will include "modes that utilize the unique point-and-shoot capabilities of the Wii Remote." But, the fun doesn't stop there. The game will also support "the recently released Wii Balance Board." Yes, you just read that correctly. The rumor is true. How it will be utilized is anyone's guess at this point, however.
Also, an official site has launched for the game, but it isn't too full of content right now.
When you can't think of an original name for a new Wii title, simply add "party" to the end and call it a day. The Wii is great for parties, so reminding everyone of their obligation to entertain friends while gaming is standard issue these days. The upcoming Tetris game for WiiWare admirably followsthistrend, with the latest information on Hudon's Japanese website displaying a name change and a lamentable delay.
Tetris Party is no longer released in July 2008; we're stuck with a "sometime 2008" instead. Well, that's for Japanese Wii owners, but hopefully the localization won't take a decade or something. All joking about the name aside, there's no reason this shouldn't be a great game. Tetris always is!
