Constant Techno

Once every few decades man evolves and creates something that is an improvement on what they already considered the pinnacle of excellence. Sometimes this is a welcome change and in other instances despite the advancement is clearly ‘better’ it’s just not got the same vibe.

Being a fan of the original Tetris, I should really love this carbon copy, Constant Techno. The blocks are the same, the colours are vibrant and the music is cheery – in a euro-pop kind of way (thankfully I can turn the music off once it’s driven me mad). As any Tetris player would know, you are scored by the number of horizontal rows you create in a chain without any missing blocks. To do this you must place falling blocks and slot them into place through the means of rotating and sliding them from side to side as they fall. As you would expect the speed of their decent increases with every level up you go. A feature this game has which I’ve not seen previously is a tally of how many single, double, triple or quadruple rows you score as well as the total and a reminder of what level you’re on – and with over 50 to try and master, you will need the reactions of a cat pumped up on caffeine to stand a chance of getting to the end!

Thankfully the similarities with Tetris title ends with the choice of playing the more advanced game as opposed to the classic version. In this ‘Constant’ version, you start the level with a number of blocks arranged in a challenging layout so you have less room to play with and even less time to think. Just remember that one lapse in concentration, can soon lead to your downfall.

Bringing it back to the opening comment, this is a game that I should love and find as addictive as the original – if not more so. I do find myself playing it quite a bit but without the same enthusiasm as I did when I first played Tetris many moons ago. I think it’s hard to truly improve on a flawless masterpiece but this does certainly match the grand-daddy of all handheld games blow for blow. I was glad to see that there had been some element of creativity by the designers than simply making a complete copy as this does give you another dimension of play, with the obstacles already in place. In a nutshell, this game is really quite good. Constant Techno will not disappoint you at all. You are able to enjoy an intuitive style of game which brings the game into the present day. If I was going to be nit-picking faults, I would say that the speed increase seems unnoticeable for the first thirteen levels, and then rapidly goes into hyper-drive to a near impossible rate between the next three levels. This difficulty is only enhanced with the option to rotate your blocks clockwise and unable to rotate anti-clockwise – and when every split-second counts, it can mean the end of your game if panic sets in.

Rating 90%

Positives

Colourful

Good music for a mobile game

Pretty addictive

Excellent time-killer

Negatives

Erratic level-up speed increases

Can only rotate blocks one way

Pausing the game can cause you to inadvertently shut the game off if not careful!