#41 - Arkanoid

The game came with that special controller... I wonder if these are rare now.



This is the level that killed me. Those yellow blocks are INDESTRUCTIBLE.

Arkanoid is an extremely simple, yet potentially addictive game. I say "potentially" because all of the right ingredients are in the game to make it a classic. It expands on Breakout, which itself expanded on Pong, by adding power-ups to the bounce-back-and-forth gameplay. It also diversifies the level layout by creating different block "dynamics," which is something Breakout sorely needed. So yes, simple, addictive gameplay, except it's way too friggin hard.

For those not "in the know" about Arkanoid, it consists of bouncing a ball from a platform/paddle/"ship" to rows of solid bricks, with the point being to eliminate every brick on the screen. The more bricks you eliminate, the faster the ball goes, and eventually enemies come out of the top of the screen to try and hinder your progress. As you destroy certain bricks, power-ups are obtained, like the ability to shorten or extend your paddle or to make the ball explode into three separate balls. The power-ups are where the game gets interesting. My favorites are the laser (which you can use to destroy bricks from your "ship"), the "sticky" (where the ball sticks to your paddle for a brief time), and the multiplier. But without these power-ups, the game gets old fairly fast, and this is coming from a fan of classic games. I'll play Pac-Man and Space Invaders until the breaka breaka dawn, but Arkanoid has never held my attention for very long. I suppose this is good because level 3 was my cut-off point, due to the needless amount of deaths. Considering the game has 33 levels, and I consider myself to be an above-average game player, I was surprised and a little annoyed. I also didn't remember playing this poorly on other versions of the game, but it's hard to say because my Arkanoid memories are few and far between.

I'm not sure whether the arcade version is better than this, or contains different level layouts or power-ups or what-have-you. It came out around the time I was 1 year old, and my local arcade that I frequented when I was a child never had a lot of older games. Nevertheless, despite my less than glowing take on Arkanoid, I still recommend you try it if you haven't; if only because the game is insanely popular and is constantly being ported to new systems.

C