Am I the greatest Tetris player of all-time?

August 20, 2007 3:27 PM

Where can I find out the current world record for NES Tetris (lines and/or score)?

I have a feeling I'm the greatest player in the world, I just need confirmation. Who tracks this stuff?

posted by bjork24 to sports, hobbies, & recreation (17 comments total)

Pretty sure Twin Galaxies is still the authority. What's your score?
posted by squidlarkin at 4:03 PM on August 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

According to Twin Galaxies, the record for points is 842,127 and the record for lines 237 .

There's a youtube video of someone maxing out the score (999,999). I don't know if that is real though.
posted by rancidchickn at 4:14 PM on August 20, 2007

My highest is 740,000. I guess that would put me at #2. What do I have to do to verify this... video my entire game?
posted by bjork24 at 4:17 PM on August 20, 2007

If you think you're the tetris master, I encourage you to get a Nintendo DS and Tetris DS.
The players in the multiplayer lobby are very skilled and it's just a pleasure to play that game anyways.
It has a wifi capability so you can test your skills against the internet.
posted by PowerCat at 4:55 PM on August 20, 2007

Exactly that, unless you'd rather arrange for a referee to watch your game in person.

Impressive, by the way. And I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't direct your attention to the existence of Tetris: The Grand Master.
posted by squidlarkin at 4:58 PM on August 20, 2007

I've wondered this myself.

I play a variant where I require myself to score tetrises only...so it's difficult, but the points rack up ridiculously quickly.

Usually I get a noncooperative piece at some point, and I have to amend the rule until I clean up the mess.

Anyway, I've been in the high 100's of lines many, many times, and I hit the 200's every once in a while. And I usually only get the bug every other year or so, followed by a couple of months of playing until my wife tells me not to anymore.

Does Tetris DS do head-to-head like the old GameBoy version did? I loved that mode with the link cable.
posted by SlyBevel at 5:13 PM on August 20, 2007

841 lines, according to this story by the guy whose wife set the record. (Featured also on the front page of that Twin Galaxies site).
posted by beagle at 5:25 PM on August 20, 2007

^ That story is what inspired my question, but she has the record for most lines on the gameboy version. I think the NES version is the only pure version.
posted by bjork24 at 5:46 PM on August 20, 2007

Version.
posted by bjork24 at 5:46 PM on August 20, 2007

If this video doesn't scare you with its alien Tetris skill, then feel free to keep your dream of supremacy alive. I know it shattered mine.
posted by lubujackson at 5:51 PM on August 20, 2007

Playing Tetris DS for a high score is utterly pointless for reasons outlined in my link above. Push mode's pretty fun, though.
posted by squidlarkin at 6:10 PM on August 20, 2007

That crazy tetris video, btw, seems to be fake... or, at the very least, altered. As per the comments, the frequency-stripes on the screen are much faster than usual, and there are several suspect moves during his or her play that make me very suspicious.

I'm not deterred.
posted by bjork24 at 6:44 PM on August 20, 2007

I don't think the video is altered, but I do think that the version of Tetris featured has...alternate rules.

For instance, there's a point where he maneuvers an "L" into a space where it couldn't be turned into it...in other words, that Tetris lets you rotate blocks through other blocks as long as the resulting position fits.

And in my book, that ain't real Tetris. But whatever. He's fast, for sure.
posted by SlyBevel at 7:06 PM on August 20, 2007

In the link that squidlarkin posted, they explain that the famous Tetris video was made using a special version of Tetris (Grand Master).

For instance, you can move/rotate pieces before they even show up on the screen. There's a few other differences if I remember correctly - but that explains some of the weirdness.
posted by revmitcz at 7:35 PM on August 20, 2007

Here's the Tetris DS gameplay in head to head.

Clearing one line does nothing.
2 lines adds 1 line to the opponent's stack
3 lines add 2
Tetris adds 4 lines.

There's a new special move added with Tetris DS, it's the T-Spin, using the T piece, you rotate it so that it fits in a space where it couldn't usually go. This adds 3 lines to the enemy's stack. Doing 2 in a row adds 3 + 4 lines.

Basically you just do lines till the opponent bursts.
posted by PowerCat at 10:27 AM on August 21, 2007

Oh, also you have a placekeeper. If you press the L button, you can put the current piece in reserve and then swap it for another piece, later during the game. This is good for strategy.
posted by PowerCat at 10:28 AM on August 21, 2007

I had a suspicion that I was the world master of Gensis/Megadrive Columns, a suspicion I was able to confirm was horseshit when my girlfriend beat my top score on her third go on the Wii version.
posted by nthdegx at 1:28 AM on August 23, 2007