Why Tetris isn't a puzzle game

It's weird how bad people are at looking even a tiny bit below the surface. All you have to do is quietly mention in passing somewhere that Tetris, Columns, Bejeweled or any of their millions of clones and derivatives aren't actually "puzzle games", and all hell breaks loose.

Even nowadays, with a resurgence in indie games making abstract graphics (relatively) popular again, most gamers angrily insist that if something doesn't look like a traditional spaceship, it can't be a spaceship.

Stuff you could buy instead of Game Room, No.1

Details are a funny thing. Some games can be absolutely amazing in practically every respect, yet make a single clumsy error and be completely ruined. Some, on the other hand, can get almost everything wrong and still be irrationally compelling.

You Will Die is in the latter category.

Stuff I bought instead of Perfect Dark, No.6

Saturday – Arkedo Series 01: Jump!

If I've learned anything over the last 30 years, viewers, it's this – videogames are like girls. It's always the cutest ones that make you cry. And rarely can a game have illustrated that maxim better than the final purchase in WoSblog's seven-day Perfect Dark Substitute Adventure than Arkedo Series 01: Jump! which prices the pitiless gutting of your very soul at 240 MS points.

Stuff I bought instead of Perfect Dark, No.5

Friday – Missile Escape

I'm a total sucker for one-life games, and I also love to see screens full of dozens of tiny missiles with vapour trails, so when it came to my week-long quest to more productively spend the 800 Microsoft Points that the shoddy and incompetent XBLA version of Perfect Dark costs, Missile Escape (80 MS Points) was a no-brainer.

Stuff I bought instead of Perfect Dark, No.4

Thursday – Monaco 360: Retro Racing

Experienced WoS viewers are probably sick of me going on and on about Monaco GP at the slightest opportunity. Sega's 1979 coin-op racer is, nevertheless, a timeless classic that's as gripping and addictive now as it was 30 years ago, and I have no plans to shut up about it until it's universally accepted as the seminal work of genius that it is.

I'm Avocado Soldier now

This is the greatest comic in the history of there being comics that existed.

You must go and read it right now, before anything else happens.

The streets is full of creeps

Haven't done one of these for a while, but if you've got an iPhone/iPod, or are even just thinking of maybe getting one sometime soon, you shouldn't miss out on today's top App Store freebie.

Stuff I bought instead of Perfect Dark, No.3

Wednesday – Microsoft Game Room

After the soul-destroying horror of Perfect Dark XBLA, I didn't think it was possible to see something on the 360 this month that was even shoddier. Man, I was all sorts of wrong.

Stuff I bought instead of Perfect Dark, No.2

Tuesday – Decimation X

At first glance, Decimation X (80 MS Points, about 61p) looks like just an pumped-to-the-max version of Space Invaders for up to four players. But in fact, there's a lot more to it than that – it's actually an pumped-to-the-max version of Space Invaders for up to four players that also… wait, no.

Sorry, my mistake. In fact it IS just a pumped-to-the-max version of Space Invaders for up to – well, you get the idea, right?

Stuff I bought instead of Perfect Dark, No.1

Monday – Pixelkiller

As alert viewers will know, the 800 Microsoft Points I'd been saving up for several weeks in anticipation of the arrival of Perfect Dark went unspent due to the useless inadequacy of its developers. Rather than let them go to waste, though, I've been browsing through the work of some people who actually care about what they do.