While being employed by the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Alexey Pajitnov made gaming history on June 6 1984. He had created a modest little game which will be played by people of all ages and gender from all around the world. Welcome to Tetris mania. With such popularity, it is no wonder that the impact of Tetris on popular culture reaches far and wide.
The main reason for the game's popularity is because it is so easy to learn. With a simple and addictive gameplay, the game mainly consists of falling blocks known as Tetrominoes. There 7 different types of blocks: I, J, L, O, S, T and Z.
These dropping blocks have officially achieved iconic status in 2007, when a joke entry of a L-shaped tetromino won the GameFAQs' sixth annual Character Battle. This proves the enduring impression the game has in the minds of gamers. The Character Battle is a popularity contest that requires the users of the video game site to nominate their favourite video game characters.
Hirokazu Tanaka was the man behind the music to the Game Boy versions of the game. The music is mainly Tanaka's arrangement of other composers' work. Even though there are three types of music in the game, the one that is most recognized by people is Type A. This particular tune is an instrumental version of a Russian folk tune Korobeiniki. Anyone who had watched the film Snatch will recognize it as the theme for the character "Boris the Blade". Korobeiniki was also used as the opening theme to Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat Segdiyev series on TV.
Korobeiniki, has been widely covered by many different musicians. Possibly the most interesting cover is by self proclaimed "world's best neo-post-post-music hall anti-folk band", Pig With the Face of A Boy, called "A Complete History of the Soviet Union as Told by a Humble Worker, Arranged to the Melody of Tetris" which they released in 2009.
The film industry has increasingly poached video games for adaption into feature films; and as a reply of sorts, Black20.com made their own mock trailer for Tetris-The Movie in 2008. The trailer is a spoof for an imaginary film set in a different reality in which young people take part in a deadly battle flying tetromino shaped planes.
Meanwhile, television had decided to take the lead and adapted the video game into a game show. Brain Wall, a segment from a Japanese game show started going viral on video sharing sites, and avid viewers had dubbed it "Human Tetris". The game requires human contestants to go against a giant foam wall. Often the wall has funny cut out holes, and the contestants must get into a formation that will pass through the cut out. Later FremantleMedia was to release their own version of the game show in over 20 countries as Hole in the Wall.
Without a doubt this modest video game has infiltrated all the different aspects of modern popular media. In fact the impact of Tetris on popular culture is so profound that there is even a pattern for a Tetris quilt on the Quilter Geek Blog. It is safe to say that this game will continue to be played by generations of gamers to come.
The main reason for the game's popularity is because it is so easy to learn. With a simple and addictive gameplay, the game mainly consists of falling blocks known as Tetrominoes. There 7 different types of blocks: I, J, L, O, S, T and Z.
These dropping blocks have officially achieved iconic status in 2007, when a joke entry of a L-shaped tetromino won the GameFAQs' sixth annual Character Battle. This proves the enduring impression the game has in the minds of gamers. The Character Battle is a popularity contest that requires the users of the video game site to nominate their favourite video game characters.
Hirokazu Tanaka was the man behind the music to the Game Boy versions of the game. The music is mainly Tanaka's arrangement of other composers' work. Even though there are three types of music in the game, the one that is most recognized by people is Type A. This particular tune is an instrumental version of a Russian folk tune Korobeiniki. Anyone who had watched the film Snatch will recognize it as the theme for the character "Boris the Blade". Korobeiniki was also used as the opening theme to Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat Segdiyev series on TV.
Korobeiniki, has been widely covered by many different musicians. Possibly the most interesting cover is by self proclaimed "world's best neo-post-post-music hall anti-folk band", Pig With the Face of A Boy, called "A Complete History of the Soviet Union as Told by a Humble Worker, Arranged to the Melody of Tetris" which they released in 2009.
The film industry has increasingly poached video games for adaption into feature films; and as a reply of sorts, Black20.com made their own mock trailer for Tetris-The Movie in 2008. The trailer is a spoof for an imaginary film set in a different reality in which young people take part in a deadly battle flying tetromino shaped planes.
Meanwhile, television had decided to take the lead and adapted the video game into a game show. Brain Wall, a segment from a Japanese game show started going viral on video sharing sites, and avid viewers had dubbed it "Human Tetris". The game requires human contestants to go against a giant foam wall. Often the wall has funny cut out holes, and the contestants must get into a formation that will pass through the cut out. Later FremantleMedia was to release their own version of the game show in over 20 countries as Hole in the Wall.
Without a doubt this modest video game has infiltrated all the different aspects of modern popular media. In fact the impact of Tetris on popular culture is so profound that there is even a pattern for a Tetris quilt on the Quilter Geek Blog. It is safe to say that this game will continue to be played by generations of gamers to come.
About the Author:
Playing Tetris online is a great way to unwind. There are many different versions of the game and many free Tetris websites if you look around the web.
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