Tetris Effect is perfect for people overwhelmed by modern video games

I'm pretty much in the middle of half a dozen different video games at the moment, but I can not stop playing. Tetris effect, a reinvention of the classic puzzle game for the PS4 of Ground Infinite and Lumines creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi. So, after long sessions with the game last weekend, I found myself facing the hypnagogic phenomenon holder: when I closed my eyes Sunday night, I saw the signature of the tetrominos get lost.

The game is amazing, of course, but I thought there was something else at work here too. More than any other game this year, Tetris effect feels like an escape, in the purest and most pleasant sense of the word. And not just an escape from the news and the news cycle, or work and daily chores, but an escape from the world of online gambling culture that threatens to engulf a title as Tetris effect and make it useless in a matter of days or weeks, as can happen to games without firearms or film production values.

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Modern video games, of the narrative type online and solo, seem to arrive, explode, then disappear at a faster and faster pace these days. Whether it's the new Spider Man game or the royal battle mode has just come out in the last Call of Duty or the massive western epic of Rockstar Red Dead Redemption 2You may feel like taking a break from your PlayStation or Xbox for a few days, but also give up your hobby forever. And if you are a Fortnite fan, do not forget to keep up to date, unless you want to spend countless hours playing seemingly every day.

It seems that games are becoming more and more dense, requiring more time, to the point of becoming a feeling of pride in some players who devote themselves entirely to a new version at launch. Red Dead Redemption 2 is particularly emblematic of this seamless and uninterrupted gaming trend that we all seem to be participating in today, with the viral publications on the social networks that prove it.

same South Park The joke, dedicated secondary intrigues and a comical number of references, during his last two episodes, show how many hours the inhabitants of the small town of Colorado were passing through the virtual slice of the south of the 19th century in the game . A recent article on the excellent r / relations subreddit detailing a 24-year-old woman whose boyfriend spent a lot of time playing the game felt particularly relatable, if not a hilarious snapshot of the moment.

It is precisely for this reason that the last iteration of Tetris It's the perfect game for 2018. It only requires small parts of your free time – each session can take a few minutes, and more if you're in marathon mode or you're navigating in the new mode. This game is also pleasantly devoid of cultural references, a story that can be ruined and a mechanism that requires you to spend as much time as humanly to achieve virtual goals.

Image: Improve

Although he has high scores and notes in letters, as well as avatars and music tracks to unlock, Tetris effect looks like a video game in the sense that art was originally conceived: as a way to close the doors of the outside world and concentrate, at least for a few minutes, on the task at hand. Tetris effect also has the advantage of presenting a soundtrack and an art design that make each of its scenes a dynamic and interactive audiovisual experience, provided you live a few moments of sensory overload. (You can customize the intensity of the music and visual effects if you like in the settings.)

Last weekend, when Tetris effect First on the PlayStation Store, I took it despite its exorbitant price of $ 40, mainly because of the glowing reviews it received, the excellent trailer and some Twitter videos showcasing music and visuals. On Sunday night, the game m & # 39; captivated me. I had put it Red Dead Redemption 2, stopped crossing milestones in Destiny 2, and could not help but sink into a reward of two to three hours Tetris sessions throughout the first days post-launch.

However, one of the best things about the game is knowing that I do not miss anything by describing it and that, whatever the ensuing conversation on the forums and social media, Tetris effect will always be accessible and fun reliably when I resume it. There may be a little bit of nostalgia for the game – even though I've never been a big fan of Tetris, plunging myself into the familiar area of ​​geometric matching makes me think of my first brainstorming experiments on the Game Boy.

But Tetris effect pushes back the nostalgia and achieves something new: the seemingly anachronistic game design feels rested, appealing to what makes the original Tetris great and combined with what many of us, including those who are disillusioned or indifferent to today's demanding video games, are in dire need of such a product. In doing so, developers Enhance and Mizuguchi have created the best version of Tetris – here in 2018, when he has to compete with the photorealistic simulations of the US border – which we have never had.