Hands on with Tetris DS

There's been plenty of information flowing from Nintendo about how great Tetris DS will be. But there's only one way to really see how well a game is shaping up, and that's to get your hands on the blighter.

Well, in gaining our first hands on impressions of Tetris DS at GDC last week, we didn't really want to take them back off it!

The most obvious enhancements are the new modes Nintendo has devised. There are five in total, plus the standard Tetris game for those of an old fashioned disposition. We tried them all in turn.

First up was the Touch mode, which is a bit like Namco's game Mr Driller but in reverse. Instead of drilling down into a load of blocks, you start with a messy, stacked mass of Tetriminos, as Nintendo now calls Tetris blocks. You can move these around with your stylus, the goal being to pull them off the stack so they all drop down to make solid lines. It's certainly different from the usual Tetris experience, as you can't rotate the blocks, and you have as much time as you want to make your moves.

Next up was the Puzzle mode. As the name suggests, this sets you problems to solve, such as 'how can you create two full lines with the provided blocks?' which you then select and rotate into place. As with the Touch mode, it represents a more thoughtful side to Tetris.

More action-packed is the Push mode. Designed for two players (the DS will play against you if you don't have an opponent to hand), this is a head-to-head battle. You have to create lines quicker than your rival in order to reduce their playing area – eventually, their Tetriminos reach the top of the screen and you win, or vice versa. Actually, the orientation of the game is interesting. Your action happens on the DS' top screen, while your opponent's moves are shown on the bottom. Considering there are Tetriminos falling both down and up the screen, it's pretty confusing to begin with.

Equally fast moving is the Catch mode. A bit like a shoot-'em-up game, this sends blocks falling down the screen; you try to join them onto a central core by rotating it. The object is to create a 4x4 or a 10x10 square that you can then explode to destroy any blocks on the screen.

Last up, the Mission mode provides you with either marathon or timed experiences, where you have to complete the set missions to stop more blocks falling.

One neat touch is that each mode offers a difficulty slider, so you can set how taxing you want your experience to be. Modes aside, the game is looking pretty sharp, especially on the jazzed-up and super-bright screens of the DS Lite consoles that Nintendo used to demo Tetris DS at GDC.

In fact the only downside so far uncovered is that in some modes, especially Mission, the blocks are a bit small, since the full width of the screen isn't being used. We must admit too that we didn't get to play any of the modes on multiplayer.

But those provisos aside, we're pretty confident that Tetris DS will be a worthy replacement for the brilliant original, which was one of the key reasons for the success of the first Game Boy handheld.

Tetris DS is due for release on the 21st April.