Considering the fantastic March that we're about to have, what with Metroid Prime Hunters and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter slamming into store shelves, it's easy to let Tetris DS fall under the radar because it's based on one of the most played out games in history. But the magicians (yeah, I just called them magicians) at Nintendo have worked their magic to produce an imaginative puzzle game that's on the very top of my must buy list.

Basically, Nintendo's taken Tetris and repackaged and tweaked it, and the result is a wonderful little game that's packed with a wealth of content beginning with its single player mode. Comprised of several modes of play, these games provide us with new takes on the highly addictive formula while incorporating fun Nintendo backgrounds and signature theme music. For example, Standard Mode is your basic Tetris, the same game that's been released on a billion other consoles, except it comes packaged within this cute Super Mario Bros. wrapper, so you can play regular old Tetris but while viewing this neat old school NES skin.

Old and busted Tetris is cool but I want new modes, and thankfully, Nintendo hasn't disappointed me. There's several interesting Tetris variations to mess around with, each of which is marked by a classic theme. Touch Mode tosses a whole bunch of blocks onto the screen and the idea is to rotate them in order to make lines, so you're basically just maneuvering blocks around to make them fit. Then there's Mission Mode (decorated with art from the very first Zelda), that presents you with various missions (clear a set number of lines at once, for example) and forces you to complete the challenge within a time limit.

If those don't sound appetizing you may want to play Push Mode. This Donkey Kong themed game is a battle of wills as both players, the one on the top screen and the one on the bottom, battle to clear as many lines as possible, the goal being to push your opponent off the screen, so the more lines you clear, the further up or down he's pushed. There's also Puzzle Mode (not sure what the theme is just yet), a game that asks you to clear boards using a set number of pieces, and finally, or at least from what I've seen, there's Catch Mode. Highlighted by a slick Metroid theme, this one tests your block clearing skills by charging you to create squares and then maneuver them about the playfield.

In addition to the sweet single player modes there's also a robust multiplayer component that can be played online and off. While details behind the online mode are somewhat sparse, offline multiplayer allows up to ten people to battle one another on a single game card. Plus, it appears that most of the single player games are available including Standard, where the goal is to clear more blocks than your opponents, but there's a catch. Similar to the Mario Kart titles, you can acquire various power ups that can be used to annoy people and give you a leg up on the competition. You can also see all of their game boards on the top of the screen, so you'll always know where you stand.

It may be based off an aged concept, but Tetris DS has enough new features to make it worth a purchase. When you factor in the wealth of modes as well as online play, this could very well become one of the most popular DS games and a reason to buy the system. We'll have a detailed review of the game shortly before its March 20 release.