I spent a lot of time in high school trying to convince people on IRC to play Tetrinet, which should instantly reduce your esteem of me. I might have cared yesterday, but yesterday didn’t carry with it the annoucement that the DS is getting its own Tetrinet-analogue. In your face, you fucking haters.

In all seriousness: The key to making this game worth purchasing would be the use of some sort of game lobby to cull together groups of people over Wifi; Tetris, in its old age, has become the sort of game you either want to play with a bunch of people in one room, drunk and swearing, or by yourself in small increments of time (e.g., on the subway). If I end up having to sort through friend codes and waiting around on AIM for people to agree to play some game over Wifi, it might as well be something I can devote some time to, and there are already several good candidates for that. As it stands, the last dozen times I’ve played Tetris have all been with casual gamers in a loud and exciting room, people throwing cups and sneakers at each other to break concentration — something which is clearly unreplicatable on a handheld, at least until the DS drops in price enough that you can just keep a few extra in a drawer. Nintendo might as well go for the pickup-game brass ring; something as simple as an “I’m Feeling Lucky!” button which would start a random game with three other players would probably entice me to pick it up new. JUST SAYIN’, NINTENDO.

Anyway, that’s — wait, hold up, there’s a puzzle mode in this thing, too? Fuck. Way to play me.

(via 4CR)

EDIT: Everyone, go ahead with the point-and-laugh for all already knowing that Mario Kart DS already employs instagame technology. Any hope you might have clung to concerning our cutting-edge reportage of industry trends can now be dashed, as a schooner against a cliff face. Thanks for emasculating me, Douglas.