Tetris

The Good
The Commodore 64 version has undoubtedly, at least in my opinion, the greatest graphics and sound found in any Tetris version.

While most of the Tetris versions always seemed to push Russian imagery and music, C64 version goes for a more "intuitive" and "magical" feel. The greyscale graphics on the edges of the play field and the title screen are extremely stylish. The music, however, absolutely takes the prize: Really amazing stuff, almost 30 minutes of music that just fits to the Tetris idea, and really shows what the SID chip can do in caring hands.

The Bad
The C64 version lacks a few features found in latter versions, such as the Game Boy version. You can only rotate the tetraminos one way, and the drop is an instant drop instead of speeding up the fall. Also, there's only one variant of play (no "Game B"). Okay, so maybe these features weren't invented yet. I can forgive. I'm sure anyone can live without them, though.

The Bottom Line
I think it's useless to describe the game here because the game has been so revolutionary and everyone is familiar with it in some form, but here's a quick explanation: Blocks, scientifically termed "tetraminos", fall from the skies to a well. You arrange them best you can before they touch the pile on the bottom of the well. If you form a continuous row from edge of the well to another, it disappears. If the tetramino pile reaches the top, the game is over. In case you haven't figured out it already, this is the mother of all real-time puzzle games.

The end result is a simple, addicting game that doesn't require much from the computer - so obviously it works well on Commodore 64 as well. It is a very nice version. Game Boy version remains my favorite for sheer playability reasons, but C64 version will always remain, in my mind, the one with the best feeling created by the music and graphics - especially the amazing music.