It seems as if they?re trying for a storyline in this re-release of
Breakout, which is fine by me. The paddle-dude reminds me of nothing so much as that old ?Nintendo Power? strip starring the Tetrads, back when
Tetris was the Big Thing. But no matter. The game still consists of busting things open with a ball, hitting it with your paddle, and not letting it fall off the bottom of the screen.
You control the paddle with your mouse, and here I encountered the first problem. It seemed like the paddle was a little too unresponsive. I had to sling the mouse back and forth to catch the ball at weird angles, instead of the twitch maneuvering I?m used to from, say, Arkanoid or the original Breakout. That aside, the paddle handles well. You can put English on the ball, allowing you to keep it from getting in stupid ruts and bouncing to the same place over and over. And there?s often a wall behind you that can get hit once before you lose the ball to the netherworld and lose a life.
There were four levels in this preview version, and each one offered something different. The first was most like classic Breakout -- there is a pyramid of stones, and you must break them all to advance. As you knock out the bottom stones, the ones above it fall. Some break when they fall; others land at weird angles. It?s a pretty cool effect, actually. Some blocks also turn red and start shaking like crazy, and if you hit those, you get more than one ball on the screen. Cool stuff.
After clearing that level, you go to one where you must get the ball into the door across the screen. There are many columns of blocks, three high, and soon lasers start shooting out of statues on the wall. Hit a lasered block, and the whole thing advances towards you a la Alleyway for the Game Boy. Meep! This can be pretty tough if you don?t slam the ball right, but it?s easy enough once you get the trick.
The third level is something of a ?puzzle? level. You must knock five blocks away without letting the ball hit the lasers in the back of the screen. Hitting the lasers causes the blocks to come back. After hitting those five blocks, five more appear closer in. Repeat this again and the last row appears close-up. Easy enough since the blocks reappear at the closest location you?ve gotten to.
The last level is something of a boss fight. A mummy-dude charges you, and you?ve got to hit him with the ball a number of times. He zaps you with his eyebeam, which turns you black (and maybe slows you down -- the first time I got zapped, I immediately struck the killing blow). If you have a bad angle on him, this is damn hard. If you have a good angle, it?s trivial. Your results may vary.
All that?s well and good, but is Breakout -fun-? Yeah, I?d have to say it is. There?s something pleasant about busting blocks. I loved Arkanoid, and I think this?ll be fun too.
