A Review: Acid Tetris, DOS 1998

This is a weird one, to be honest; it is literally a Tetris clone with the exact same gameplay but with some questionable visual and audio changes. Stack blocks of various sizes and shapes and attempt to make a solid line that then vanishes with a score addition, then do it again and again as the speed of the blocks increases with each level. Only this game had an annoying 'Smiley' companion that would do its best to make the player fail. I remember downloading this game from an abandonware website some time ago on a whim and then pretty much forgetting it existed for a time before digging it out of my 'Hobby's' folder and loading it up. Being that this is a free-to-play freeware game, there is not a lot of information to go on, and it seems to be something that the developers made for fun. Commonly, this happened in the 1990's during the 3.5-inch floppy era of gaming. Companies would make games like these and ship them as a freebie to go with an order for another piece of software, or in some cases, hardware.

I found this game to actually be a lot of fun for what it was. I liked that it didn't take itself too seriously, and the humor was proper 90's gold. With the little 'Smiley' goading the player into making mistakes only to laugh at you when you did. I played for a good while across several days as a way to break up gaming on larger, longer titles. I will freely admit that little yellow bastard had me screw up more than once, and again, I'll admit to at least three rage quits. Still, I enjoyed the simple no frills play and thought that this was a good 'in between' type of game, as well as being a pretty decent Tetris clone.

The graphics were gaudy and over-the-top with heavily contrasting reds, blues, and yellows across a black background. The blocks were clear and individual enough to allow play to be endurable for the eyes, and the interface wasn't terrible. The best thing I can really say is that at least it had graphics.

Overall, a game that was okay to burn some time messing around on.


5/10 – Okay!

Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ

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