Brick Breaker

Genre: Arcade Brick Breaker / Party Game

Players: 1-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Brick Breaker… er, not to be confused with Amazing Brick Breaker, despite that that game also sometimes goes by just Brick Breaker even though it is not actually an Arcade-style Brick Breaker… I know, confusing… anyway, this game, Brick Breaker, is an Arcade-style Brick Breaker in the same mold as Breakout, Arkanoid and Alleyway. And given its generic name, you’d think it’s pretty much a no frills version of the genre… and you’d mostly be right. Mostly.

Visually, this game looks good, infusing the classic game with a neon aesthetic that looks nice but generally isn’t so distracting it detracts from the gameplay. This is paired with an energetic soundtrack that was somewhere in between forgettable and annoying. On the whole, the presentation here is fine, though the visuals definitely fare better than the sound.

In terms of gameplay, the single-player content here is fairly standard stuff. There’s an Arcade mode where players try to complete each level with only 5 lives, and a Survival mode where they try to complete all levels with only five lives. In later levels, Arkanoid-style power-ups are introduced, you get the drill.

However, while the game design here is mostly standard stuff, the physics are frustrating, with the ball often bouncing in seemingly random and nonsensical directions. On multiple occasions while playing the game, I spotted the ball hit a wall or ceiling straight on and bounce off of it in a completely different direction, and a few times it shot almost straight up or down when hitting the side of a block (not the corner, mind you). This lack of predictable ball movement really hurts the game play here.

Another element that hurts the gameplay is the controls. While this game mostly controls just fine, there’s no button to speed up or slow down movement, forcing you to either carefully judge the digital controls at full speed, or use the analog controls, which seem to have such a significant dead zone that smaller movements aren’t detected at all. And while I’m on the controls, I can say that this game supports touch controls… in menus only, which makes me feel like, “well, what’s even the point, then?”

If that was where this review ended, I’d be concluding that this is a mediocre to average entry in the genre, but thankfully this game does have an ace up its sleeve – the multiplayer mode. This game sports three different multiplayer modes, all of them allowing up to four players compete in a free-for-all or on teams, and these multiplayer modes are all… actually pretty darn good.

In Versus mode, players face off from different sides of an empty field, with multiple balls bouncing between them. Players lose points if a ball hits their side, and gain points when a ball hits an opponent’s side when the last paddle it touched was yours. In Rush mode, that same field now has colored blocks in the middle, with each side assigned a color, and whoever can clear enough blocks to bounce the ball to the middle wins. Finally, Base Defense mode is much like Versus mode, but now each side has rows of blocks behind their paddle, and the winner is decided via elimination – whoever is the last to have their wall breached. These modes are all excellent takes on the genre, and make for a great, simple party game that’s sure to make for a fun distraction at parties, although I will say it’d be nice if there were options to change the screen layout or customize power-ups in these matches.

In the end, Brick Breaker is a good-looking entry in the Arcade-style Brick Breaker genre, but one that has some physics and control issues that make it a sub-standard entry in the genre… at least in single-player. However, if you can grab a few friends, this game actually manages to be a pretty creative and fun way to throw down, albeit still somewhat feature poor. Still, if you want a decent game to bring out at a party, Brick Breaker might surprise you.

tl;dr – Brick Breaker (not to be confused with Amazing Brick Breaker) is, as the name implies, an Arcade-style Brick Breaker, and a visually good-looking one at that. Unfortunately, the controls are lacking and the physics are wonky. On the bright side though, this game’s multiplayer modes, while feature-poor, are a lot of fun, and while this may be a mediocre Arcade-style Brick Breaker, it’s actually a pretty decent Party Game.

Grade: C+

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