Ball Breaker

Your Sinclair

Graphics 9/10

Playability 7/10

Value For Money 8/10

Addictiveness 8/10

Overall 8/10

Tony Worrall 8/10

CRL £8.95 Reviewer: Tony Worrall What an unfortunate title for a game. Kinda brings a tear to the eye - and playing the game may bring on the same result. Ball Breaker is frustratingly hard - maybe they should have called it 'Hardball'. The game, if you didn't already know, is a 3-D Breakout clone. The blocks that have to be thwacked actually look like real blocks. No flat indistinct shapes for this game. Your block sits at one end of the 3-D room, faced by a wall of different valued bricks. Some contain extra lives, others slow down the ball and so on, just like the other Breakout games - but the catch is you can only zap the bottom row of bricks. Anything balanced on top of these blocks then drops to the floor to be collected or zapped again. The higher blocks can't be touched until they reach the ground. This can lead to big problems - especially when a nasty is let loose by the destruction of a block. To complicate matters, some blocks can only be zapped from behind, while some need to be blasted with you handy cannon (but watch that limited ammo!). There are many more, all detailed in the instruction pages accessible from the impeccable menu screens. Tune into the 128 version for a pleasant ditty that plays all through the game, or switch on the 128 'arcade-style' sound effects. These FX give the game a good deal of extra panache. The colour scheme sticks to the inevitable monotones to avoid clashes, but it works well - the play area is detailed enough to stand out. I said the game was hard - boy, is it tough! it took me hours to crack the second screen. The main problem is the forced 3-D perspective. This makes judging the return of the ball tricky in the extreme. Also most of the walls are far too near the player's bat for comfort. This, together with a couple of small bugs I noticed, make Ball Breaker a pig to play. Addictive, yes - nice on the eye, yes - but hard all the same. One for the Arkanoid/Batty crowd only.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Sinclair User

Overall 9/10

Graham Taylor 9/10

Label: CRL Author: Richard Taylor Price: £7.95 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Graham Taylor Being one of those people who quite liked CRLs last bat and ball game Room Ten (lone in a sea of apathy) I guess I'm biased, but in terms of actual forget-about-trendiness-programming technique-or-anything-else fun I think Ballbreaker may be one of the most entertaining games for months. There is a plot, but it is of zero importance - describing Ball Breaker is simple: Breakout in 3D. Imagine Breakout as played in an Ultimate 3D room layout. Mostly it's straightforward bashing of bricks. There are a few extra treats like maniac lizards that head straight for your bat (fortunately though, you are equipped with the odd missile or two with which to dispatch them.) The ball (or ovoid as CRL insists on calling it) bounces across the screen, knocking out bricks and generally behaving in authentic Breakout fashion - you can even get it trapped behind the wall of bricks and total them dozens at a time. On the 128K version this is accompanied by some very splendid sound effects. Screen 1 poses no special problems except that in 3D it's particularly easy to miss the ball when it's first dropped into the arena. By Screen 2 there are a few extra problems to deal with. Sitting on a couple of the bricks are a pair of lizards. When, as you must, you shoot their perch out from under them they get irate and run towards you. You'd better have a pretty good idea where your missile launch button is, think twice and you're lizard meat. At the same time there's this bouncing ball you're supposed to be hitting at some bricks remember? The graphics are tolerable - there isn't a lot you can do to make a brick look interesting. Though some of the bricks are bonuses and others are replaced by animated platforms the technique is still the same - watch the ball and get the bat behind it, use the angles carefully to maximise the destruction. The awesome secret of the success of this game is only that it's fun. There is something in Breakout that always made it addictive, way beyond its simplicity would suggest, and with Ball Breaker CRL has given it enough of a new twist to ensure another burst of longevity.

PROGRAMMERS Richard Taylor is 18 and has been programming for CRL since he was 13. He has produced a wide variety of programs from utilities to games. Softography: Fifth (CRL, 1983), Zaraks (CL, 1983), Terrahawks (CRL, 1984).

Crash

Presentation 79%

Graphics 77%

Playability 59%

Addictive Qualities 61%

Overall 64%

Ben Stone 70%

Bym Welthy 60%

Paul Sumner 62%

Producer: CRL Retail Price: £8.95 Author: The Zen Room Into a 3-D screen drops a ball. You control a bat that can be moved along one edge of the screen to prevent the sphere dropping into the black void which lies behind your bat. Should the ball pass you, then one of your four lives is lost. If you use the bat to deflect the ball onto the barrier of blocks that faces you, most of the blocks can be destroyed, sending the ball rebounding toward your bat. Those blocks that do not submit to the sphere's deadly touch can be destroyed by one of the missiles that you carry - you start the game with ten. Points are awarded for every block destroyed. If the ball passes through a gap in the wall, falling blocks can temporarily halt its return. But the sphere continues to make destructive contact with the rear of the wall till it has opened a passage back to your side of the wall, where once again you must move fast to hit it. Different blocks have different properties. Some are destroyed from the front; others can only be destroyed from the rear; some offer extra lives or missiles, others change the size of your bat or allow you to exit to the next screen. On higher levels, the destruction of certain bricks activates aliens who can easily remove one of your bat's lives with their lethal touch. COMMENTS Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: mainly monochromatic with decorative display panel Sound: good 128 tune and spot FX Options: definable keys

Ballbreaker - 3-D Breakout!

Slow and unplayable, or the best of its genre?