iPhone Reviews

We've all been there before, casually trying to lay a block in Tetris only to drop it in the wrong place, or the wrong way up. If only getting a block to the bottom of the grid didn't cause it to immediately get locked into place. Enter iFlexis, an excellent port of the mobile classic by Thumbstar Games.

Although it follows the basic structure of getting three or more blocks of the same colour together to remove them from the game screen, iFlexis has a rather interesting twist. Falling blocks don't glue to the stack, they can still be moved, jumped or slid around with your finger even afterwards, allowing you to create combos where you otherwise might have been unable to.

Perhaps even better, the three or more blocks involved in a combo simply have to touch each other at the same time for the combo to count. They don't need to remain stuck to one another, and you can even keep them bouncing to add more blocks to the combo. It's really quite ingenious, with excellent physics, and could have you cursing those sticky moments of Tetris more than ever before.

Three modes of play are on offer - Mission Mode, Classic and Marathon. Mission Mode throws you into short, bite-sized sections, where you must clear the given objective as quickly as possible. Each time the objective is completed, the screen clears and you start the next one with a new grid.

Classic and Marathon mode work on a very similar formula, with both allowing you to continue playing until the screen eventually fills up, leaving you unable to make any more moves. The only real difference between the two modes are your targets. In classic mode, your aim is to score as many points as possible, while in Marathon mode, it's a case of how long you can survive for. Either way, you'll be bouncing your blocks around making sure that the screen stays as clear as it can for as long as possible.

Occasional quirks and power-ups will appear to make the game more interesting. Bombs can clear out large numbers of blocks, while clones will take on the appearance of the first block that they touch. You'll even get striped blocks moving back and forth above the stack sometimes, which make it harder for you to move the other blocks into the position you require them to be in.

While the game board may seem unusually small on first glance, you'll soon discover that there's plenty of room to move the blocks around. In fact, you'll have plenty of fun getting them to bounce around in the play area. Likewise, you'll have no problems distinguishing between the various different block colours. The sound is generally passable, though you've always got the option to switch it off if you do get annoyed.

Once you've spent a few minutes with iFlexis, you'll be wondering if you'd ever want to go back to the game that started it all. This is an excellent port over from mobile, making iFlexis on iPhone and iPod Touch the best version seen yet. If you want an extremely addictive game to pass away the time, and be entertaining at the same time, iFlexis is the one to get.

You can buy iFlexis from iTunes here.