Odds are, if you've been watching the same TV show for almost 20 years, you're running as much on nostalgic fumes as on content; in a musical analogy, you still like the songs but you're pining for the days of the A-cast. Either way, your entertainment preferences are an oddity and only vaguely worth the residuals you make them generate. However, when a videogame hangs in there for two decades with almost no fundamental mechanical tweaks and only an occasional facelift, that's saying something and that something is "Staying Power." So don't roll your eyes at yet another Tetris reincarnation; Tetris DS is the best thing to happen to the franchise since the original, chunky, black-and-white billion-seller Game Boy.

At its core, Tetris DS is the same nigh-universally-known game: Four-tiled pieces of different configurations constantly fall, it's your job to fit them, on the fly, seamlessly into the accumulation of already-dropped pieces below — create an unbroken line of tiles, and that line disappears, making room for more. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's simple, addictive and, in its own chunky, geometrically-spooning fashion, beautiful.

Tetris DS expands this basic mechanic into a wide range of gameplay modes and options. Standard Mode hasn't changed much in 20 years (although, like all Tetris DS modes, it has an audiovisual 'overlay' of classic Nintendo games—including music and visuals from old Nintendo favorites like Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, etc.). Touch Mode requires players to "grab" pieces from a pile with the DS stylus (rather than rotating them on their way down) and fit them into free spaces. Push Mode lets two players duke it out in a (Donkey Kong-themed) tug-of-war. Catch mode inverts the Tetris process, putting players in control of a flying mass of blocks, collecting pieces. Puzzle mode is a turn-based, take-as-much-time-as-you-want challenge to eliminate lines in the best order; and Mission Mode continually puts players to specific tasks (such as "clear a line using a 2x2 block formation").

There are also some changes to the all-Tetris, all-the-time recipe: In addition to a "ghost tile" option that shows where and in which orientation the current piece will land, a whole string of upcoming pieces is broadcast to the player. The current piece can be temporarily swapped into a holding bin (although the new piece may turn out to be just as useless as the one swapped). The only potentially-negative change is a scheme that lets players continually "spin" a piece (for best placement) as it approaches a potential slot; some purist players may feel this option too forgiving, even a little cheap.

Tetris DS's far-and-away best feature is the multiplayer; the game allows for single player-versus-player, "competition" Tetris (with Nintendo-style power-ups) for up to ten players locally or 4-player worldwide competition with the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection service (Wi-Fi unit required). Local play is possible off a single Tetris DS game cartridge through the Download Play option—it requires a little extra waiting while other players load up, but they didn't have to buy anything and the multi-gameplay is worth the wait regardless.

Loads of replay value and overall puzzle appeal in this retooled, beautified, geometry-obsessed classic.