Tetris DX (1998)

One of the few things that has brought me a modicum of joy this year was the acquisition of this Funkey S, a very tiny handheld that can play roms for a variety of old systems. Perfect for a quick round of Tetris DX, whenever I have a few idle minutes I need to kill. I wasn't sure if I would hate the controls or not, but I actually find games to be perfectly playable on this. Perhaps not for an extended amount of time, but for pick-up-and-play this pocketable device does legitimately do the trick.

Because the screen is so small though, I can only truly recommend playing games that were designed for small screens to begin with... In other words:

• Game Boy
• Game Boy Color
• Game Boy Advance
• Sega Game Gear
• Neo Geo Pocket (Color)

Everything made for TVs is just too difficult to play with great accuracy, at least in my opinion. So I've made this my go-to for old handheld titles, very few of which I've ever gotten to play before.

Well, I've played Tetris before of course, but again -- that really is the perfect title for gaming on the go and for killing a bit of time. Tetris DX includes four modes:

• Marathon (play until you lose)
• Ultra (score attack in 3 minutes)
• 40 Lines (time attack for... 40 lines)
• Vs. Com (battle the computer)

No holding pieces, no tricky maneuvers, and no counting on a line piece to show up whenever you need one oh so desperately. You get what you get, and the instant a block lands it sticks. No muss, no fuss. I like the additions later Tetris games get, but there's something to be said about keeping it simple.

As for why I play the DX version from Game Boy Color instead of the OG on regular Game Boy... Well, the colors are nice, what can I say. They picked some nice colors for those blocks.