Friday, May 18, 2012

The evil empire strikes back

Tetris is described in a NYT article on “stupid” video games (“Just One More Game”) as a “simple but addictive puzzle game.” It came pre-installed on Nintendo’s first-generation Game Boy. That, of course, was the device which launched the hand-held gaming revolution back in that iconic year – 1989. As it turns out, Tetris had been designed in a Soviet computer lab back in 1984 – another curious coincidence. 
So this may have become a way for the evil empire to strike back from the grave. The ghost it germinated, once let loose, has chained millions throughout the giddily victorious “free world” to various gaming gadgets – a trend mightily reinforced by the arrival of Steve Jobs’s creations and their clones. Let’s see who will laugh last, after all.