They Brilliantly Blinded Me from Blocks by LGCzero on February 11, 2009
Rating: 9/10
Who needs clunky old blocks when gems will do the trick!
Being a long time fan of puzzle games I had to have this when I first bought a Genesis. Sonic was growing a little stale for me, so a change of pace was needed. How wrong I was. At higher levels, I think it actually moves faster than Sonic ever could.
The basis of Columns is to clear multi colored gems from the playfield by linking them with similarly colored gems. The innovation comes from the way they can be cleared. While Tetris allows only complete lines to be cleared horizontally, Columns allows vertical and diagonal combinations as well. A well placed gem can clear half a screen.
The Grecian background art honestly never made much of a difference for me, especially because it only appears on a handful of screens and I never cared for the "Flash" version, but I did always love the "Atropos" background music. Even today I find myself humming or whistling it at the strangest times.
As far as knocking Tetris from it's throne, it still had a long way to go. But I say consider this: Whether it be for a minute or an hour you cannot go wrong with a puzzle game. And Columns still delivers it's fair share of entertainment.
