Amazingly, some games last as long as they do and I’m glad that the industry, especially Atari as of late, wants to keep old IP alive and kicking. It speaks volumes regarding the respect that Atari has for its IP, especially when it’s remade into something beautiful and representative of the original title. Such is the case with Breakout Beyond.
Breakout Beyond from developer Choice Provisions and publisher Atari is a game that has the pure essence of its predecessor while introducing new, and sometimes familiar gameplay elements that make the entertainment just a bit better. The best of both worlds is balanced with Breakout Beyond and the result is mainly positive.
So, let’s call up Woz, tell him that his original art is ready to go in a new wrapper, and let’s break into this review.
Breaking Breakout to Break out
If you’re not familiar with the original Breakout game, then let me tell you the brief history. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak worked for Atari way back in the day pre-Apple. Jobs proposed an idea for a game to Nolan Bushnell that featured a ball knocking down multi-color blocks. Atari’s Nolan Bushnell accepted the idea and tasked Jobs with making the game for the least amount of money, which meant conserving chips that went onto its arcade board. If Jobs could use a minimum amount of chips on the board, then he would have his game manufactured and a fat bonus to go with it. Jobs, in all his non-technical glory, hired his good friend Woz to help figure the chip issue and assured Woz a bonus if he could work his magic. Well, magic was worked, the game was made, a bonus was earned, and Jobs completely lied to Woz about the bonus amount and shortchanged him, which Woz found out about at an Atari picnic when Nolan Bushnell asked what Woz had used his X amount of money for.
Moral of the story – don’t lie to friends, make a great game, and make it last.
The game that was made was an enormous hit in the arcades and made Atari more money for their empire. Breakout also stuck around for a long time, even making an appearance in the 90s on the Atari Jaguar before being revamped and revitalized with Breakout: Recharged on modern gaming devices. Honestly, it hasn’t been a bad journey for the original game, and it certainly isn’t bad in its most recent form with Breakout Beyond.
Modern takes with a sprinkle of borrowed.
The gameplay in Breakout Beyond is a cross between the original title, Super Breakout, and Arkanoid. The concept of bouncing a ball into bricks to ‘breakout’ of imaginary confinements is still intact with this game. Just like the classic, Breakout Beyond has you bouncing a ball off a paddle, nailing multi-color bricks, some with specific parameters, such as requiring to hit them multiple times to break them, and then dealing with the ball coming back to the paddle at gradually increased speeds. The fun of the original game was handling speed insanity with ball movement. It’s almost as if it requires some eye-hand coordination to be successful. At its core, it’s still the same classic.
What Choice Provisions has done to this classic structure is gone into its bag of tricks and pulled an old Ralph Baer Brown Box special with ball movement by adding what Baer called ‘english’ or curving. Instead of just getting straight shots and angles at blocks, the player can now move the paddle onscreen as the ball is hit causing a curving effect with the ball. It’s a neat addition to a classic concept because it gives far more control to the player when it comes to the accuracy of the ball-to-brick hit. This was the first big addition I noticed in the game and it works very well to improve the original gameplay.
Now, the second noticeable part of this game is that it sits horizontally instead of vertically. In the original game, it would be a north/south gameplay level. The ball would work its way downward and bounce upward, which is a simple concept that makes sense. This time around, Choice Provisions took that concept and turned it on its side with a horizontal view. For me, this took some getting used to because the original game was burned so deeply into my muscle memory. About 2-3 games into it, Breakout Beyond’s new view made sense and was quite fun, especially when you start getting into later levels that have a large number of layers of bricks to them. It gives more real estate to work with in gameplay, and to see, and it’s far easier on the eyes to keep up with. I didn’t know how much I needed it until it arrived.
Staying with that big, unusual plus, Breakout Beyond doesn’t waste its new horizontal look at all. The horizontal layout is used to hide and push multiple levels of bricks toward the player’s paddle. This does several things. Firstly, it causes beautiful chaos with the speed of the ball and the large mass of bricks getting consistently pushed at the player. It’s like a sideways Tetris where things get a bit faster as you get closer to your goal – a literal finish line that says ‘GOAL’.
The second thing this does is add intensity to the gameplay. You will feel compelled to rush and to get hyper-focused on the gameplay to keep up with the ball’s movement. The more bricks there are, the more intense the gameplay gets. The constant push of the bricks and the stress that comes with making sure to avoid missing the ball is upped by 10. Strangely stressful, and methodically designed, it works very well to add more drama to the game. I’m not sure I would have ever imagined drama in a Breakout game, but here we are.
To make this game even more intriguing, Choice Provisions also added some Arkanoid-like power-ups. As you progress through levels, you will find bricks containing special power-ups. Some would be laser-led brick destroyers, while others could be as simple as a temporary wall behind your paddle to prevent ball loss. If you have never played Arkanoid in your life, then just know that it took the Breakout structure and added power-ups to keep the game flowing and moving. These power-ups work well inside Breakout Beyond and add another layer of fun. It works well to enhance and push great gameplay.
All this combined, especially the movement, there is one more intriguing aspect of the gameplay that caught me by surprise but was relevant and makes this game deeper. The level pushes toward your paddle as you start progressing through bricks, the bricks left over can impede your progress and shorten the bounce area of the ball. For example, if you hit a multi-ball power-up, the balls will start barreling through the bricks leaving some behind. Should those left behind hit your paddle, then your paddle becomes incapacitated and you run the risk of missing a ball. What can also happen by leftover bricks is that if they’re close to your paddle, then the ball could ricochet quickly off them and there won’t be enough time to recover them with the paddle. It’s another layer of gameplay obstacles that keep your brain and eyes active as you slide from level to level. If you enjoy that intensity and detail, then you’re in luck with Breakout Beyond.
Breakout Beyond’s gameplay moves and shifts the classic game’s ideas correctly. The gameplay is quick, fun, and intense. This game seemed well-planned and executed, especially when you get two players involved (there is an option for this). While this game can feel repetitive at times, and the level designs, which are artsy and unique, help to tame that, the game is wonderful to play on and off again. This is in line with the original game’s arcade concept. Anyway, there are lots of good things going on in Breakout Beyond.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Breakout Beyond from developer Choice Provisions and publisher Atari is a nice tip of the cap to the classic game. While its screen configuration and pacing might be a little jarring for new players, the power-ups and gameplay elements that present good challenges will certainly hook them. The game does a great job of balancing classic Breakout ideas with well-thought-through gameplay design.
