Breakout is nearly as old the games industry and the Pretty Girls series churns out games quicker than I have hot dinners. In just a couple of years, Breakers is the 14th title in the series. It is the first game in the series that moves away from card or tiles games though so it felt like the right time to dive in.
Your screen is 3/5th gameplay for brick breaking fun and 2/5th a pretty girl changing outfits as you break the bricks. Nothing is too saucy or scandalous, so the focus is largely on the gameplay which takes place over 3 or 4 levels per character. Each character is at the bottom of the screen and instead of the usual paddle to hit balls up to the bricks, its a baseball instead. This caused me all kinds of cognitive issues. You can hit from a left or right hand hit but it doesn’t affect the physics at all. It’s really jarring and I never quite got to grips with what I expected to see and what I saw. Instead, to try and send the ball in different directions, its down to the direction your character is moving when you hit the ball. I get it but it never quite sat right with me.
Levels start off very easy but towards the second half of the game, Breakers offers up some nice ideas. Machine guns and moving enemies fire bullets at you that can cost you health alongside losing a ball. However, if you bat the bullets they turn into your friends and they can now fly back and clear bricks for you. It is a great addition but its barely used. Other powerups and brick layouts are all standard fair. It also suffers from old breakout game issues – trying to hit the last brick. It stretches the game out and feels a bit like a missed trick.
Nothing is offensive here, its just there’s nothing glorious or outstanding either. I really struggled with my mind to wrestle with batting a ball left or right visually but not physically although this might not be an issue for you. In the end, I just spammed the hit button and zoomed around the bottom of the screen and cleared levels eventually. If you do that, mute the sound effects as the bat sound grates fast. A missed opportunity this, there’s some nice ideas under utilised.
Review copy provided by publisher.
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