Blockout Game Sample - Genesis/MD
0Blockout is a modest puzzle game with an interesting concept that was meant to combine the addiction of Tetris with the allure of three-dimensional graphics. Blockout is credited to California Dreams and has seen a variety of publishers (the Gen/MD is by Electronic Arts), and was developed in Poland by Aleksander Ustaszewski and Mirosław Zabłocki. It was released on a variety of platforms during the late 80s and early 90s from the Arcades to the Atari ST to even the Lynx handheld unit, probably under the notion that it would be a sure-fire hit... except it wasn't. This isn't to say that it was panned (on the contrary, it recieved positive reviews from some major media outlets), but it certainly wasn't a big seller. Oh well. It's certainly not the first game to have lofty expectations only to live on in relative obscurity.
This is not the greatest conversion of Blockout, but is a respectable effort given the hardware. The game's controls aren't as responsive as other ports (one of the game's main criticisms) which makes the game pretty unenjoyable at high speed levels and the game doesn't look as colorful or animate as well as some ports either. The game also has a bit of a learning curve, as the added 3D elements sets it apart from Tetris and the game allows you to twist and turn the random pieces you get along three axis in addition to the standard speed dropping (with the start button), with the goal of the game being to form layers (you get great score bonuses for clearer multiple layers at once). The main thing that disturbs me about this game is that it has almost no music, and there is no music during gameplay, which makes the game appear rather, well, dull. Not only that, but once the blocks start piling on, it's almost impossible to accurately incorporate the preceding pieces for a comback as there is no "Next" field to think moves ahead. Still, the game's not too shabby and has very flexible gameplay options as far as allowing you to alter the dimensions and theme of the playfield. A similar game was released for the Virtual Boy in 1996 by the name of "3-D Tetris".
This is a video of the game in action showing some of its dynamics. Enjoy.