http://gewaltig.net
Cultris II is one of the fastest Tetris®-clones ever! Train your reflexes in the single player challenge modes, enjoy a split-screen match with your friends or play over the Internet with the best of the best. Cultris II not only supports various game modes, but all of them with team-play. The exquisite graphics and stylish jungle music puts other clones to shame. This is not your grand mother's Tetris® anymore...
I think it's better for you to open YouTube and search for 'Cultris II' . Some players post their games on YouTube. If I get better computer, I will too T_T .
My opinion:
This is the best game I have ever played/seen. First it looks impossible to get as good as the average players in the game (they all look like cheaters due to their awesome skills!), but amazingly, I'm now one of them ;D . And most people just take a few months before they look like a cheater, though it takes years to be a pro (even after tens of years, you still improve).
And being able to play impossibly fast and smart really gives undescribable experience. Whenever you want, you can either focus 120% on the game, you can even forget when or where you are in a whole match (one match can just be 1 minute). But also, you can play casually (but strangely, you still play very quickly without concentrating, if you already spend just a few months on the game, so the game is still really fun!).
Skills used in the game:
1. Thinking Speed - of course.. where each piece should land. Good players figure this out almost instantly, but everyone starts from a noob, spending seconds for this is normal.
2. Moving Speed - After you know where the piece should be placed, you have to move the piece and drop it. 2-step finesse is often learned spontaneously by most players after a few weeks or months, allowing them to do this in less than 1/3 second. When I was new, though, I do this in around 2 seconds, and still often misdrops xD (misdrop = dropping the piece on the wrong position, dammit!)
3. Stacking Skill - More like thinking skill, but very different in reality (you will understand later if you play). Basically, it's how you place the pieces so that your position is good. Good positions can receive any kind of pieces while still maintaining a good position.
4. Combo Skill - Combo is the main way to attack the opponents. Combos sends garbage lines (which is a plain row of blocks with one hole. So if you insert anything into the hole, the garbage line is cleared). The most usual combo method is the 2-gap combo, but some players use hybrid combo. Tetris-start is sometimes used to gain more combo time, which will consequently allow bigger combo and thus stronger attacks. It's... quite complicated here xD .
5. Downstacking Skill - downstack is like clearing lines, mostly garbage lines, to prevent yourself from topping out (top out = lose, new pieces cannot spawn because your stack already reaches the top). The art of downstacking is very very deep. It's the downfall of many players, being an important skill in the game, and a very tricky one to learn. Even after tens of years, the best players still often make mistakes while downstacking.
6. Strategy - attacking isn't everything. Defending isn't everything as well, since the longer the game lasts, the stronger attacks will be (to ensure a game will end, though it usually ends before). Attacking while your opponent has a nice combo stack will just get you counter-attacked, with a considerable line-send disadvantage. If your opponent isn't ready to receive an attack, it's time to spike him up. If you're in a bad position, but your opponent is worse, creating a risky combo stack is one considerable choice, especially against opponents with no amazing downstacking skill. Strategy is a bit more complicated in team games, but basically you got to attack at the same time for a higher chance to KO an opponent.
I was surprised Nullbyte could reach 100 BPM in only a few weeks xD . (100 BPM = 100 blocks per minute. So you nearly drop two pieces per second. Like I said, looks like a cheater). If you play casually all the time, you will get stuck on 120-140 BPM. Which is already insane, actually. To reach higher BPM, requires you to stay focused, which I do unpurposively due to how I already fall in love with the game ;D .
So basically, after a few months (or weeks in Nullbyte's case oO . I believe a few months for most players), the game is amazingly fun, no matter you play it casually or seriously. Play casually, with many challenges, opponents to beat, teams to join and fight together with, and join tournaments just for fun. Play seriously, and dig up the skills with no limit, join the best teams, try to raise your rank (like I raised from rank 68 to rank 46 this month ;D . I wonder how it will be next month), join tournaments and meet great players to learn from.