Preview: Tetris for PSP Minis

If you’ve seen my other previews of games on display at last weeks PSPgo launch event, you know that Sony has quite a lineup this holiday season, both on PlayStation Network and UMD. One of the new special features coming to the PSP and PSPgo are the Minis. Yes, there are some problems with these smaller games, but the issue is that at their most basic, they are in fact games. I had a chance to check out one such PSP Minis game, Tetris.

And you know what? It’s Tetris. Everything you would want (other than multiplayer) is here in this game. However, while the game is set to launch with the release of the PSPgo, no pricing has been confirmed for the game.

So what is new? Well, there is 12 new varieties of the traditional Tetris game that can be unlocked. Gravity has the blocks fall down to fill in gaps, Treadmill shifts the playing field one over after every drop, and one mode even has a beat meter like in Lumines that deletes lines as it crosses. Other new features include ghost-records of developer’s best scores in certain modes, and a Trophy-like system called “feats” keeps track of unlockables. Also, while this is no Lumines-style Tetris (c’mon Pajitnov!), there’s a rather cool aesthetic going down. It’s dashing.

Ultimately, I’m fairly impressed with this version of Tetris. If it’s cheap, Sony and publisher Electronic Arts should have no problem making the sell on this, and it sets a fairly high standard Minis to follow. Now if Sony would get going on that multiplayer issue… and pricing issue… and entire back catalog for the PSPgo…