Breakaway

Description

At first glance, Breakaway resembles an ugly version of Breakout (Atari 2600, 1978). Its walls aren't exactly a rainbow of colors, but its unorthodox control scheme works surprisingly well. Your joystick-controlled paddle moves slowly by default, but holding down a keypad button gives it a nice boost. In the basic variation you just deflect a ball against a wall, but others let you steer, catch, or slice right through the wall. A nasty glitch makes these games a lot more challenging than they should be. Many times when you press the button for a new ball it comes flying down so fast you have no chance to react! You'll lose a lot of balls that way, so it's a good thing you get five. Before you dismiss Breakaway, check out its innovative head-to-head mode. Two players defend walls on each side of the screen, giving it a bit of a Warlords vibe (Atari 2600, 1977). You can compete against a friend or the CPU, and it's a lot harder than it looks! You move your paddle up and down instead of left to right, but the programmers didn't bother to adjust the controls, so you'll have to hold your controller sideways. My friend Scott discovered a technique that allowed him to press both the keypad (for speed) and side button (to catch) - in addition to the joystick. "Hey look - I can do both at the same time!" "Gee Scott, that's looks really uncomfortable." "Yeah! And it hurts like a b*tch!!" We had some fun, but some contests seemed to end prematurely thanks the game's unnecessary time limit. Even so, these head-to-head variations make Breakaway one of the more entertaining Arcadia titles.