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Tetris 99 – Season 1 Big Block DLC Review

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Tetris 99 has been one of 2019’s biggest surprises. Putting a battle royale spin on a timeless classic has grown to become Nintendo Switch Online’s killer app. Even with only one mode during the first few months of the game’s existence, I’ve poured dozens of hours into the game and had no plans of stopping.

But for players looking to shake things up, the Big Block DLC is available for purchase. For $9.99 USD, you get access to two new offline modes. Are these new additions enough to pry you away from the online multiplayer action?

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20XX Review

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20XX by Batterystaple Games isn’t afraid to show where its inspiration came from. From the design of its main characters, to the feel of the game’s controls, right down to aping one of the most iconic intro screens in gaming, this is an unapologetic riff on the Mega Man franchise, particularly the X series of games. However, some fundamental changes to the core formula flip the standard bot-battling formula on its head.

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Tetris 99 Review

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The battle royale sub-genre of games has a new competitor in town. Going beyond the bounds of the shooter, The Tetris Company and Nintendo surprised the world with Tetris 99. Exclusive to the Nintendo Switch, 99 players enter one room and battle in block-dropping warfare until only one remains. Tetris in its base form is one of the greatest games of all-time, but how does it translate to the modern battle royale format?

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Kickstart Guide to Tetris Effect

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Tetris Effect isn’t designed to be the most competitive or eSports ready version of the game. With the way that the game goes out of its way to obstruct your field of view for the sake of looking cool, it’s generally meant to be more about being absorbed into the vibe that the puzzle, music, and visuals create in unison. However, I understand that none of that matters when you’ve failed the final Journey mission for the hundredth time, or you fall well short of your friends on the leaderboards.

Though the core game is decades old, there’s still much to learn about this classic block-stacking game, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the modern Tetris ruleset. Maybe these tips will come in handy with whatever obstacles the game throws at you!

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Tetris Effect Review

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[NOTE: I did not play the game in VR at the time of writing, so I don’t touch on it or factor it into my current opinion of the game]

Tetris is the closest thing we have to gaming perfection. Universal appeal, easy to learn, difficult to master, and inherently designed in such a way that you’ll never win, but you can always do better. Feel free to make a case for any other game, but Tetris being the highest selling game of all-time with no signs of slowing down decades into its never-ending lifespan is a testament to its greatness.

How do you reinvent gaming’s equivalent of the wheel? If you’re Tetsuya Mizuguchi – most famous for his work on trippy games such as Rez and Lumines – you change the context of what the Tetris experience is through flashy visuals, modern electronic music, and VR support. I can’t speak to the VR side of the game, but the sheer act of playing the block-staking action in Tetris Effect becomes less about exercising your brain and more about being absorbed in the feeling that the entire experience creates.

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Tetris Effect – Journey Mode Playthrough

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Tetris is a timeless classic, but a new coat of paint by Rez and Lumines visionary Tetsuya Mizuguchi goes a long way towards transforming it from an intense mental exercise to a euphoric trip through time and space. In this set of videos, I complete the main campaign mode, along with an attempt at taking on the endless marathon! Full review forthcoming!

Buy Tetris Effect Now From Amazon.com

 

Street Fighter V Officially Announced

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Capcom recently released a teaser trailer for Street Fighter V. The YouTube video has been made private, but for the time being, you can check it out here on Daily Motion. Besides showing a few fleeting glimpses of Ryu and Chun-Li in action, the end of the trailer states that the game is exclusive to PlayStation 4 and PC.

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Coming Soon: Dance Central 2 Review

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Are you ready to bust a move? The sequel to last year’s breakout Kinect hit is out now, and my brother picked up a copy of it late last week. At this point, I have not shaken my booty enough to write a full review but rest assured it’s on the way.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to prove to the haters why this Jett is so Fly Like A G6. Yes, that was a terrible pun and yes, I’m sorry.

Gears of War 3 Review

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Do you remember the Gears of War Mad World commercial? Up until that point, the game had been presented as a ‘dudebro’ shooter with all of the emphasis on its revolutionary cover mechanics and stop-and-pop shooting. Then the Mad World commercial hit television and it presented the game as something more emotionally charged. Unfortunately, it was all for the sake of advertising, as none of that Mad World feeling ended up making it into the game. Gears of War 2 sort of tried to capture that, but those few attempts came off as unintentionally funny.

While Marcus and company weave through bombastic firefights and kill all varieties of alien lifeforms in Gears of War 3, it actually manages to capture that Mad World feeling in a number of spots. In one particular case, it literally captures it, but that’s going way into spoiler-territory. Let’s back up and talk about this new, improved and somewhat more emotional Gears of War 3.

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Gears of War 3 Review?

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If you’ve been holding your a breath for my Gears of War 3 review, you can exhale. No, this isn’t it and no, I’m not close to having one ready. Though my progress through the game was stilted by my practice for T12: Toronto Fighting Game Championships, I’ve now got some time to make progress.

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