A great Breakout/Arkanoid engine with a crutch that makes it more frustrating than fun.
The engine itself is great, the graphics are decent, the music is catchy and doesn't get annoying. It boasts "over 30 levels" … it has the content. But in the end, it falls flat.
One can't help comparing this game to Bricks4Ever, because that is the single BEST Breakout/Arkanoid clone on the Xbox 360 period.
This is a very basic Breakout clone. The only thing it really adds from the original are the steel girders that can't be busted.
No powerups, no "screw you" powerups that shrink your paddle. Just flat out block busting. And I'm a big fan of that. I've said before that I still to this day play Super Breakout for the Atari 2600. Even that had more modes than this game does though.
I've already summed up the gameplay. Block busting. That's it. It looks like each level has at least one extra life. It has continues, but no save option. It not only saves your high scores locally, but also has a worldwide high score list. You can invite a friend, invite them to WHAT is beyond me since none of my friends have this game. Maybe invite them to watch? Because the game doesn't boast any kind of multiplayer. You can show players … but it shows players of ALL Indie Games all over Xbox Live and not just for this game. I guess the developer thought it would show just people playing this game. And it has an "Advanced" control option that supposedly allows for more precise paddle control, but I've never seen it allow for anything other than irritation. But that's just me.
The graphics are actually halfway decent. It has three different themes (that have no effect on gameplay at all) … a space theme, a sky theme and a retro theme that kinda makes it look like a really old school Breakout. But the other two themes are just kind of so so. The space theme sticks a space background in with a planet. And the sky theme sticks in blue skies. The paddle itself looks pretty neat, the ball itself leaves a constant trail of smoke (at least, I like to think it's smoke). The bricks explode in this pretty cool looking fireball. Unfortunately, when there are multiple blocks being busted, that fireball obscures vision of the ball almost until it's too late. And there's been quite a few times where the game will just stop dead for a few seconds … and has actually caused the ball to go straight through those steel girders.
The sound effects themselves (other than the explosion) are pretty terrible, and don't sound anything like they should. But the music, like I said earlier, is actually pretty good consisting of jazzy/technoish stuff.
But let's get into the gameplay. Other than that slight hiccup with it stopping dead and weirding out from time to time, the engine itself is awesome. The ball reacts the way it should in a game like this, the paddle control is actually better than that of Bricks4Ever because it doesn't go too fast or too slow. That's the only complaint I really have after playing Bricks4Ever so much is that the paddle moves a bit too fast. In this, it's perfect. It FEELS right and plays a great game of Breakout. Couple that with the high score system that gives off multipliers when blocks are hit without the ball hitting your paddle and you've got a score chaser on your hands.
The only real complaint I have with the engine is a rather large one. You don't serve the ball yourself. The game does it for you. So no setting up your shots. Why change this? It's been around since the original Breakout. It's a rather stupid decision really.
And a Breakout game with an engine done as well as this one is only as good as it's levels. And that's where this completely falls apart. The levels are mediocre at best. The level design and layouts are just boring at best, ludicrously irritating at the worst. This game uses those invincible blocks to a rather annoying level which does make you worry about your skill shots … but couple that with the fact you can't serve your own ball it just becomes time consuming and irritating and tends to lend itself to very shoddy level design. If the game didn't use those invincible blocks as a crutch to make the levels seem interesting (and ultimately failing) it wouldn't be so bad. But there's nothing really impressive or fun about the levels. There's no originality in them, nothing to make you go "whoa, okay. Now that's cool." Just a bunch of annoyingly placed steel girders. I couldn't even bring myself to finish the game because I was just getting bored with it to be perfectly honest.
5.5 – It has a great engine, decent graphics, good music. But mediocre at best level design with no originality or fun is what ultimately kills it. It's only 80 points, and it's not terrible by any means, but if you already have the superb Bricks4Ever, just get that and leave this be. Yes, this has a slightly better engine … but it's not anywhere near as interesting and falls flat on it's own merits.