Hands down the most pure and perfect games ever are puzzle games. Tetris is the best example, having a perfect blend of simplicity and everlasting gameplay. Puzzle games don't rely on complex adventures but rather on just well thought out ideas. Unfortunately, there are only so many ideas that people want to think up. Basically, almost every puzzle game out nowadays is a Tetris and Columns clone. Thankfully, Wetrix doesn't fit the mold.

Sure, there's geometric shapes. Sure, they fall from the sky. Sure, the name even sounds like Tetris. But Wetrix has a lot going for it. The premise is that pieces fall from the sky in four shapes: the T shape, the box shape, the L shape, and the straight line shape. You place them over a square. If they are red, they'll make walls. If they are green, they'll destroy walls. Basically, you want to make walls to hold the water that falls. After a short time, the water will start to fall. Hopefully, you built areas to contain that water so it doesn't fall off the square. When water falls off the square, the liquid meter will rise. When it reaches to the top of the meter, it's game over. So what you want to do is build walls around an area (preferably the sides of the square) and use the green shapes to destroy the walls in the middle so you have a great area for the water to spread.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of obstacles in your way. Bombs will create a hole in the square where the water can flow out. Sometimes it will rain, and the water that falls in the non closed off area will just flow off the edges. Ice Cubes will freeze your watered off areas. Earthquakes will destroy many of your walls. Your only salvation is the fire, which will make a lake evaporate. Of course, even the fire can't help you with the biggest hazard of all, the sloppy control. The control in the game is either super sensitive or is slow in responding. Either one is frustrating, especially when you have a small area you need to close off. It gets even more frustrating in two player mode where the split screen makes it hard to judge where the small areas are.

The most important thing in a puzzle game is addictiveness. Because puzzle games don't offer much variety the whole way through, they have to have an addictive idea to keep you playing. Wetrix will keep you playing without letting you remember what time it is, but it's nowhere near as addictive as such classics as Tetris and Tetris Attack. But still it's the best puzzle game on the N64 and one of the best of the next gen systems.

Overall: 7.9