Tetris Plus, or: Archaeology Could Really Use a Red Block Right Now (Like Right Now This Instant Oops I Died)

Tetris was invented in 1984 by a Soviet computer engineer, and involves dropping oddly-shaped blocks into rows, so the first thought is that it has little to do with archaeology. Of course, that's hardly something that will slow the ingenuity of developers, and so Tetris Plus was born. Tetris Plus, for Playstation, Sega, and other gaming consuls, includes a Classic Mode, but as this is irrelevant to our discussion we shall ignore and instead focus on the other two modes: Puzzle and Versus.

Archaeology: where you help the professor find his
glorious treasure before the Epic Spinning Ceiling
of Death grinds him into mincemeat.

In concept, both are similar to Classic Mode, except that they begin with blocks on the screen, and the object is to get a little professor down to the bottom before a spinning ceiling of spikes comes too low and kills him. The little professor just wants to find the treasure at the bottom (in Versus Mode getting there before the other player's professor, or at the very least staying alive longer, which apparently amounts to the same thing), and apparently he's willing to risk horrible evisceration at the hands of spinning spikes to get it. (Don't worry, all this carnage is very bloodless, but one could imagine the potential damage.)

Let's just think about the archaeological merits of these new modes. The game in fact begins with an introduction of our tireless professor and his faithful assistant, who, it proclaims, "are searching these ruins hoping to make great finds". Fantastic, you think. Great finds. That could mean, like, anything, not just treasure. And indeed, the next few images show our intrepid heroes looking through some rather unflashy rubble. It's nice to see that for once archaeology isn't all about the shiny stuff. That holds until you get to the actual game, where our professor starts locating gems and gold. So maybe it was just a nice thought.

Once you get to the gameplay, the plot kicks off (as much of a plot as Tetris can include, anyways). The professor dodges around falling bricks, hoping to stay alive until he can reach the next level. There are four locations to go through, which are at least archaeologically sound places to examine, those being Maya, Egypt, Knossos, and Angkor Wat, but the only thing these actually have to do with anything is dictate the background and the music. There's also a secret Atlantis location, but considering you have to complete all four of the others, which each include twenty levels, and you have to complete these in one sitting, the chances of actually getting to Atlantis are about as equal as, well, finding the real Atlantis, so factually, we can just go ahead and let this slide. In Versus Mode, you don't play any particular location, but you are pitted against another player, and both you and the other guy are trying to get to the treasure first – or just kill the other. Apparently, archaeology is a pretty cutthroat business.

(Just on a side note, the professor is a jerk in Versus Mode. If you get to the treasure first, he lounges back and throws gold happily in the air, rubbing it in that he's here and your opponent is not. If your opponent dies, he's quite eager to tell them that they "need to do better" or "need more practice". Yeah, he's totally in it for the money, not for the betterment of human knowledge, which makes you wonder if he's not actually a grave robber rather than an archaeologist.)

All in all, Tetris Plus is an entertaining game, but in terms of archaeology, it doesn't have much. Maybe there is a slight acknowledgment of the merits of non-shiny artifacts, but considering that the actual archaeology involves following a mysterious map and dodging around falling blocks in an old temple, the actual methodology might leave something to be desired.