Click the banner to return to the main page

Kickoo Breakout (Review by Brian Emick)

Breakout is a high res version of Ababall, one of my favorite Palm games. If you have played Ababall you will feel right at home playing Breakout. For those of you who haven't played either, Breakout is a clone of the old breakout game that appeared in arcades and on the old Atari systems. Breakout adds powerups to the mix. They range from ones that change the size of the paddle to one the reverses your controls. There are powerups that affect the ball itself. Such as slowing or speeding up the ball, or splitting one ball into three. Here is a quick breakdown of the available powerups available: Slow ball - makes the ball go slower Fast ball - makes the ball go faster 500 points - increases your score by 500 points Big paddle - makes your paddle larger Small paddle - shrinks your paddle Magnetic paddle - the ball will stick to your paddle until you release it or a five second timeout occurs Surprise - a powerup is randomly chosen from (slow ball, fast ball, 500 points, big paddle, small paddle, magnetic paddle and gun paddle) Multiball - you ball becomes 3 balls, you can have up to 3 balls on screen at once. Fireball - your ball is capable of destroying any bricks on the screen Sudden death - you will lose one life if you catch this powerup Extra life - gives you an additional life Reverse paddle - the movements of the paddle are reversed, if you move left the paddle will go right, and vice-versa End of level - when you pick this up the side gates of the level open up as if you have destroyed all the bricks, you can exit immediately or wait and try to score more points There are 36 levels in total. Four more than Ababall comes with. The levels are very well designed. They never seem impossible to beat. The later levels all take a different techniques to beat. Some of the later levels do get rather frantic. The only way to control Breakout is with the stylus. While some have seemed to complain about the lack of another way to control the game, I think the stylus control works out very well. There is a slight learning curve, but it becomes second nature rather soon. The high-res graphics are really quite a sight to see. There the reason I went from a Palm m505 to a Sony Clié T615C. I use this game to show off my Clié to my friends. The game plays very smoothly. Running at least the same speed of Ababall. It's really amazing all the animations that they were able to fit on the screen and not have any slowdown. One thing I would like to see is the ability for more levels to be added. AtomSmash allows this, and it really increases the value of the game. Although the 36 levels included should keep most busy for a while. Breakout actually takes less space than Abarall does, which is pretty amazing considering that they added four more levels and high-res graphics. Breakout takes 582K and will run fine from a memory stick. Overall this is an excellent game. I would recommend this game to anyone with a color high-res Clié, but be warned, your productivity may suffer. Graphics: 9 Playability: 8 Longevity: 8 Value for money: 8 Overall: 9 Price: $12.95