Weekend Watching: the story of Tetris, 25 years later

As you've no doubt seen by now, no less than Google has given Alexey Pajitnov's landmark game Tetris the official re-design nod in celebration of the game's 25th anniversary. In celebration of our own, I figured it'd be as apt a time as ever to give mention to BBC4 documentary From Russia With Love -- still the most complete and directly resourced (though admittedly occasionally heavy handed with its Soviet melodrama) re-telling of the story of Tetris' birth and rise to ubiquitous acclaim.

I don't think many people still know just what a fascinating story it was, between the iron-curtain drama and international business intrigue, and just how shrewdly major players were acting behind the scenes to all get a four-block piece of the action, creating a whirlwind with Pajitnov -- here portrayed as someone who just, quite simply, was happy to have created an appealing game -- at its center. [Though he would later tell me, with a sly smile, that he didn't necessarily go without taking at least some advantage of the situation.]

Since the complete documentary has been stripped from Google Video's archive (and still, bafflingly, hasn't been released on DVD), it's presented here in six YouTube chunks (with the remaining five after the jump): make your way through it while you still can.