Tris

Developer: Noah Witherspoon
Price: FREE
Version Reviewed: 1.0

Tris is a great, free Tetris clone that has been around since the jailbroken iPhone 1.x days. It's really nice and has controls better than the official Tetris.

Tetris has been around since the 80s. Popularized on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and it's been on pretty much every single computer / phone / game console since. This version is a freeware one that first appeared on the jailbroken Installer.app last year. The game play is basic and no-frills pure block-stacking Tetris.

Where this game excels over any other Tetris game I've seen is in the controls. This developer has really taken care to adapt the controls to really fit the iPhone OS. Swipes work great to moving the pieces in a smooth fashion. Taps rotate the piece. One really good plus is that with a good swipe upward you can pull a piece slightly from it's final position if you do it quickly after it has been placed.

The game does progress pretty fast once you have reached a certain level. Perhaps a little too quick -- or maybe I'm just not that good. The developer has also included an online leaderboard that you can submit your scores to from the App itself.

I'd recommend this over the $10 official version of Tetris in the App Store if you are just looking for the basic no-frills Tetris game.