In Soviet Russia, the blocks rotate YOU

BBC Four had "Computer Night" tonight, which consisted of a half-hour overview of the evolution of the PC (very UK 8-bit focused, which was cool for a nostalgia freak like myself, but it was all a bit speedy) and another half hour of Stephen Poole looking smug in between various people who should have known better, of which more later. These two were preceded by TETRIS: From Russia With Love, an hour-long documentary following the story of the game's origins in the Moscow Academy of Sciences and the various shenanigans along the way to becoming one of the most popular games ever.

As the director explains, the programme focuses on the people who brought the game to the outside world and the lengthy rights battles that involved. There was much dramatisation of the differences between Cold War Russia and the Western games industry (initially overplayed, but ultimately justified) and the key personalities were well represented - especially Evgeni Belikov, who starts off as a potential villain but ends up as one of the heroes of the piece. And in the middle of it all, charming, innocent and happy despite the almost total lack of royalties, is Pajitnov.

Despite the genuinely fascinating drama around the sales rights, I couldn't help but be frustrated at the obvious pieces missing from the programme. Nothing at all was made of the huge impact that Tetris has had on games. Similarly, when starting the tale about Nintendo's quest to license it as the Gameboy's bundled game, the momentousness of the nomination itself is completely ignored. (Though it's later explained that, through Gameboy sales alone, over 70 million Tetris carts were produced.)

Still, it's well worth catching on the repeats (tonight at 11:30, and at various other times this week) or via BitTorrent when it eventually shows up. For a potted history of the saga, see this page from the old AtariHQ.com site.