Sega's answer to Tetris and a pretty good one at that.

User Rating: 8.6 | Columns GEN
By TheSerafen | Review Date:
Tetris was the first game to bring the prominence to the puzzle genre. Since it was highly successful, many clones were surfacing to cash in. Columns was Sega’s answer to Tetris. At the time, I thought that Sega was merely creating an inferior knock off to leech off Nintendo’s success. Though once I played the game, I found it more enjoyable than Tetris. Subsequently, I own a few versions of Columns and no versions of Tetris.

As with many puzzle games, graphics, sound, and game play are Spartanesque. The whole point of a puzzle game is to provide a simple, yet addictive premise. These tend to be popular with casual gamers who normally wouldn’t pick up a game controller. My mom only bought a Genesis so she could play Columns without asking to play on my system. Columns has a Mediterranean theme, which made the game relaxing to play. The music does get repetitive, especially after longs hours of play, but this isn’t any different from any game from the same era. The graphics were simple, but colorful and serve their purpose. Game play is minimal with just shifting the different jewel configurations around and trying to get three of the same horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Columns is a simple, turn on the game and start playing type of game.

Since my biased toward Sega systems started around the time Columns was released, I shunned Tetris. Still, to this day, I would prefer to play Columns of over Tetris. Puzzle games really isn’t one of my preferred genres, but Columns will always hold a special place in my gaming heart.

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