There are many classic games that almost any avid gamer will know. There's Asteroids, Invaders, Pac Man, Frogger... And then we have Breakout. Breakout is probably one of the less "violent" games from the list of games I mentioned, in that all you do is use your paddle to send a ball towards bricks, which it destroys, while in the others you get frogs ridden over, asteroids and/or aliens obliterated, and of course you have a yellow circle running away from ghosts or trying to eat them inside a labyrinth. Breakout has had many remakes since it was first introduced in 1976. Some of them I would even dare say were good. However, none of them were ever so enjoyable and addictive that I actually found myself paying to buy a copy. BreakQuest changed that, to my surprise. This game is just that good, with a hundred different stages and with three difficulty levels, compelling graphics, and engaging sounds. What distinguishes this game from many of the other remakes, to my surprise, is that it has a story, if a very lousy one (I personally think that the game would actually have been better without it). It seems that an evil corporation is using a "Dumb Box" to turn all humans to idiots who'll watch the Box forever, so that this corporation will keep getting revenues. Wow, such a captivating and original story *sigh*. Now, to the game itself. You have a paddle-ship (you can choose from a number of them, though it's pure cosmetics), a ball, and a reserve ball (the reserve ball will automatically shoot out if there are no other balls on the screen, but watch out, as if you can't replace it and you lose it, then you lose a life, but gain two more balls. In the easy and normal modes you get new reserve balls even if you finish a level without one, but on hard mode you need at least two balls on screen including the reserve to have one on the next challenge). You move to what you think is the best location, and shoot the ball, which then moves at a constant speed, and ricochets away from whatever it hits, accelerating a bit (depends on the difficulty) in the process. Whatever it hits will either be destroyed, damaged, change colors, or be unaffected if it's one of those rare Super Bricks that can't be destroyed. If it is a destroyable "brick", then it might drop a power up, which can increase/decrease your bumper's/ball's size, multiply the number of balls you have on screen, change the shape of your bumper/ball, affect your bumper-ships/balls movement rate/type (Drunk Ball/Paddle is my bane), or equip you with an arsenal of anti-brick weaponry, ranging from automatic machine guns to BBoMD (Big Bombs of Mass Destruction). You can also gain/lose stars, which, if you get 7 of them, you'll get an extra reserve ball if you lack one, or you'll add another ball to the screen. The levels themselves have all sorts of neat designs, from normal 'destroy the artfully placed bricks' levels, to levels that resemble classic games (I.E., Asteroids), to levels where you need to hit a number of targets a number of times until they are destroyed. One of the later levels has you trying to destroy Billiard balls, while trying to refrain from destroying the black ball so that you won't have to restart the level. There are also all sorts of mobile critters that get in the way of your shots and can be quite annoying, but mostly they don't pose too much of an obstacle. The gameplay is simple, but fun. You move your paddle with either the mouse or your keyboard's left and right arrow-keys. You use the left mouse button or the spacebar to shoot any weapons you might have (except for mines, which your balls carry for you), you click the right mouse button or press the down arrow-key to use the gravity power (which applies a down-ward force on any balls on your screen that aren't glued to the paddle, great for changing it's direction to hit that last elusive brick), and the middle mouse button or the up arrow-key will manually launch your reserve ball if you feel you are required to. The ball follows a physics engine, and its response to what it hits and the way it hits seem very realistic. The sounds of the way the ball hits things, of the power ups you get (each has a unique one, so you can tell which power up you got just by listening to the sound it makes), and of the weapons you put to use are fitting and pretty well done. The music accompanying each level is enjoyable at the least, and you won't find yourself trying to forget any tune that might end up stuck in your head. Now, for the draw backs. While the graphics and sounds are fitting and great for a Breakout game, they are still quite sub-par when compared to almost all the rest of the modern games you'll find around for the PC. Some of the levels can be very annoying (for me it's the level where you need to destroy small dots, because when you're left with only a few out there it can be very tough to get the ball in the right places, especially in later levels of that sort where you have tons of obstacles in your path), and the story might get on your nerves, even though it's just an intro and epilogue videos, nothing more. Fortunately, you can choose not to see the intro movie each time you start playing. My last major beef is that to unlock a level you actually need to beat it once, so if you reach a level and you get tired of playing so you move to something else for a while and then return, you need to first finish the level before the one you reached again, so that you can return to the level where you left off. Another related problem (shouldn't happen much, but still) is that if you don't catch the key which falls (very slowly) from the last brick you destroy in a level, then you'll actually have to beat two levels before reaching the level where you left off. I can only guess that if 'N' is the number of keys you didn't catch, then you need to re-defeat 'N+1' levels to get back to the last level you came across. In short, while marred with a few problems, this is The Best Breakout remake I've ever seen. You'll be doing yourself an injustice if you don't at least try the demo.
BreakQuest is the first effort of European independent developer Nurium. It begins with the classic gameplay of Breakout; use a paddle to bounce a ball against a wall of blocks where each hit of the ball destroys a block... Read Full Review
The indie-scene of computer games seems to be an infinite source for great games fitting classic game genres. Yesterday I wrote a tiny review of Professor Fizzwizzle - a “classic” puzzler, I’m sure all of you are familia... Read Full Review
