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īThe era and time of this story is unknown...ī These are the introducing words of one of the most fascinating games coded for the C-64. The original game was one of the most successful arcade-games, that swallowed my money in the 80s in too, too large amounts.
The story of this game is simple. A big Starship, called Arkanoid, has been attacked and damaged by an evil alien-force. A little craft, called Vaus, has managed to escaped from this scenery and aligned into deeper space where it was ītrapped by someoneī.
Your mission is to fight against the evil force through 32 level, where you finally meet the īheadīof them. After you have destroyed this last opponent the Arkanoid will be resurrected and you have completed your mission.
The way of fighting against your enemy is to use a simple physically law: in angle = out angle. That means in practice, that you have to reflect a little ball with your vaus-spacecraft, to destroy a lot of ībricksī that are fixed, in every level, in different combinations. Every level shows an area where lots of these stones are in the upper part of the playing-arena and the vaus-craft, down at the screen border. The vaus can only be moved to the left or right direction. After starting the game a ball is attached on this bat. When you press fire, the ball will fly in the upper, enemy realms of the screen in order to destroy the colourful stones. After a brick has been slashed, the ball will come back to your side of the screen, in the same angle it hit the stone. Itīs up to you to reflect the ball back again by trying to break all the bricks. After you have done this, you will face the next level. What you shouldnīt do, is not to hit the ball with your vaus, because this means the death of your spacecraft. If you do this three times you can take a look at the Game Over-screen.
Sounds simple? - Well, it is! (in theory!) To make this game not too easy, the programmers inserted some interesting features: the ball gets faster, the longer you hold it in the game; some of the bricks releases some rotating bonus-devices with some letters on it when you hit them, that can shrink or enlarge your bat or give you the possibility to shoot the stones, when you collect them with the vaus-craft. Some of them bring you three balls (very stressy!), let you end the level, or stops the ball on your bat, whatīs good for doing a precisely shot to terminate some īhard to hitī bricks. Also there are different kinds of alien lifeforms that are flying through the sector. When they are hit by the ball, they will influence the direction of the ball. Some of the bricks canīt be destroyed, others must be hit up to 5 times without loosing the ball before they disappear.
When you reach level 32 you will see the mastermind of the aliens. (looks like the stone-monuments on the easter-islands, that also appear in wizball). While he is spitting at you, try to hit his head about 100 times without loosing the ball. This finally will break the resistance of the enemy force and will resurrect the Arkanoid.
The C64 version of Arkanoid is well-programmed. There are no bugs and the graphics, the backgrounds and the sprites are fantastically designed. The different sound effects and the main and end theme is by Martin Galway - one of his greatest work, no more words needed.
The simple rules of this game, the spacey environment and the fast gameplay makes this game to a great hit on the arcade-machine and the C 64.
A lot of so called Breakout games have risen up from the data-swamp but this one is the only classic one. So be careful, donīt get addicted to this... it steals you hour for hour.
Downloads: Music, Advert
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| GRAPHICS - 9/10 |
Exactly drawn sprites, backgrounds,
textures and other objects in a colourful variety.
almost like the original arcade game.
| | SOUND - 9/10 |
Fantastic work by Martin Galway. Great FX
and a kinda electro style main theme that fits to the
game- environment.
| | PLAYABILITY - 9/10 |
Interesting idea, simple rules, exact
steering, brings you lots of fun and high motivation
great, challenging game concept.
| | OVERALL - 9/10 |
Many breakout-games came after this one,
but this is the mother of all of them. If you like
this genre - itīs your first choice.
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| COVER |
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; "Click to zoom!")
; "Click to zoom!")
