Bat 'n' Ball Games #12

Batty (1987)
By: Elite  Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC

One of the great things about being an 8-bit home-micro owner in the 80s was not only the many cool magazines we got (or our parents got for us), but that the mags often included cover-mounted tapes that featured demos of new games and other bits and pieces. On the odd, rare occasion, however, they had been known to feature a full game! This was a time of celebration and revelry, even if it was often short-lived when the game turned out to be as much fun as shovelling rhino poop without a shovel. BUT!! One game has gone down in legend as being more fun than any kind of poop-shovelling, and that game is... Batty, shockingly! Yes, that's right, 'mounted' on the cover of the October 1987 issue of Your Sinclair was a cassette containing the full Batty game! I mean, it was never going to be another Lords of Midnight but it was still a full game which was obviously wonderful news to us cash-strapped urchins.

Must Learn Japanese #2

Zig Zag Cat (1994)
By: Suntory / Den'Z Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo SNES First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Nothing

ZIG-AH! ZAG-AH! CAT-OH!!

While it's true there's only so much you can do with the bat 'n' ball (or 'brickbreaker' if you prefer) genre, there have certainly been some interesting attempts to breathe a bit of life and originality into them over these long years. This one is a rather obscure example, to Western gamers at least, not least because was it a Super Famicom exclusive, but it was also a late release meaning many players, even in Japan, may have missed it. It's also one of those really weird games that probably wouldn't have received an overseas release anyway! Lord only knows what the backstory is about (for there is indeed one) but you play as a young boy who has a pet cat - a cat that apparently has shape-shifting abilities! As most of us would probably do if we found ourselves with the companionship of a shape-shifting pet, this boy makes use of his unique cat (who we'll call Rex and Freep respectively for the purposes of this review) by having him turn into a ball who he then hits with his green bat into an apparently-invading octopus horde. Obviously.

First Look Arcade #2

Gee Bee by Namco (1978) - Arcade

My hunt for so-called 'brick-breaker' games has revealed many examples to me. I've not even heard of some, like this one which was released way back in 1978 - only two years after the progenitor itself, Breakout. Sadly for me, it's an arcade exclusive (not that there would've been much to convert it to anyway), and like many such games it uses a paddle to move the bat so I can't play/review it properly, but it seems pretty innovative for its day. It looks and plays a little more like a pinball game than a Breakout clone too. There are bumpers, channels at the side for the ball to fall down, a twirly thing and lights to turn on, etc, but there are also numerous bricks and not one but two paddles (one at the bottom of the screen, the other about halfway up), and the object at least appears to be to take out all the bricks. It's hard to say for sure as, 1) it's extremely hard to play the game with a control pad (even one with an analogue stick), and 2) the bricks seem to replenish themselves every now and then. It must be bloody hard though, even with the correct controller, as the ball gets really fast quite quickly, but it's definitely an interesting title, especially considering its age.

RKS Score: 3/5

Bat 'n' Ball Games #11

Thunder and Lightning (1990)
By: Visco / Romstar Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: Missed It (not displayed while playing)
Also Available For: Arcade

You would think after the immense success of Arkanoid that many of the clones that followed would also meet with some degree of fame and fortune too, especially if they were any good, but this release by Visco went largely unnoticed. This is even stranger when you realise it first appeared in arcades - the birthplace of most popular games of the day, and was also ported to the NES - the most popular console of the time. Perhaps it stank of poop? Many clones were tremendously generic and highly uninspiring to play after all. After just a few minutes playing Thunder and Lightning, though, that definitely didn't seem to be the case here. Impressions of Romstar's NES conversion were initially very positive - it's bright and colourful, the presentation is nice, and my time spent with it was enjoyable, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was going to suddenly start sucking hard and I would then come to understand the reason for its apparent anonymity.

Bat 'n' Ball Games #10

Krakout (1987)
By: Gremlin Graphics  Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: ZX Spectrum  First Day Score: 9,150 (default settings)
Also Available For: Commodore 64, MSX, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro

Welcome to the ultimate challenge! Bold words indeed from the inlay of this 80's brick breaker for the home micros which, like many other such games at the time, was inspired by Arkanoid. In a concerted effort to differentiate their game from the Taito classic, Gremlin have rotated the action ninety degrees which means the ball (mainly) travels left and right rather than up and down, but apart from that things are very familiar here - simply clear each of the stages of the bricks contained therein to move on to the next. A big but not immediately noticeable difference here, however, is that unlike Arkanoid with its thirty-three stages, Krakout asks you to clear a whopping one hundred stages! Luckily a vast majority of these contain far fewer actual bricks though, so they shouldn't take as long to clear - in theory.

Bat 'n' Ball Games #9

Arkanoid - Revenge of Doh a.k.a. Arkanoid II (1987)
By: Taito Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade  First Day Score: Not much with a control pad :(
Also Available For: NES, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Commodore 64, MSX, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Apple II

There have been a surprising variety of bat 'n' ball games since Atari's Breakout first appeared but, despite that, it's still Arkanoid that most gamers cite when recalling their favourite examples. Luckily Taito were not ignorant of the joyous reception their fine game had enjoyed and swiftly went about crafting a sequel. As before, it has a nonsensical story which is just an excuse to play the game really. This time, the amusingly-named 'Doh' has come back to life and now inhabits a large spacecraft called 'Xorg'. Using this craft he/it has 'entered our universe from a different dimension'. In response, the 'Mixtec' Arkanoid-type ship has launched 'Vaus 2' to make a pre-emptive strike on Xorg.

Bat 'n' Ball Games #8

Devilish a.k.a. Bad Omen (1992)
By: Opera House / Sage's Creation Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis First Day Score: 12,260
Also Available For: Game Gear

I must say, as I discover and play more and more bat 'n' ball games for this series of features, I am continually impressed by creative developers' attempts to come up with stories for them. I mean let's face it - how could there logically be one for a game of this type? That doesn't seem to stop them trying though, and that remains the case with Devilish (released as Bad Omen in Japan). Accordingly, it's set in the days of yore and features a nameless prince and princess who were happy and in love until a jealous demon turned them into... umm, stone paddles, obviously. Then, 'suddenly, a mysterious blue sphere fell from the sky' which allowed the price and princess to do battle with the demon and, presumably, regain their biological forms and continue 'loving' each other (giggity). It all sounds pretty ridiculous, of course, but it does mean we have another Breakout-inspired adventure to battle through which is great news! In theory at least...

Crap Games #7

Crackout (1991)
By: Palcom / Konami Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 7,990
Also Available For: Famicom Disk System

In my last review for this series of features I spoke of the lowest magazine review score I could remember from back in the good old days but I may have spoken too soon. Recently re-entering my conscious mind from the dark realms of depravity that lurk in its basement is this game; an NES game which was rather unusually released in neither the Japanese nor American markets. Us lucky Europeans got to sample its delights though, but probably not too many gamers bothered based on the review I can now vaguely recall which savagely hacked it to pieces, then ate and pooped out the pieces, then set them on fire, then peed on the ashes. Such savagery was probably as much in jest as genuine disdain but I think it's likely that Crackout is not generally viewed as the pinnacle of its genre all the same. I'm nonetheless keen to find out just how bad it really is, especially since it's an example of a genre I'm rather keen on, no less. So... shields up, phasers on stun, energise...

Bat 'n' Ball Games #7

TRAZ: Transformable Arcade Zone (1988)
By: Cascade Games Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Commodore 64 First Day Score: 10,625
Also Available For: ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC

My first encounter with bat 'n' ball games, or 'brick breakers' as some prefer, goes back to the original Arkanoid game which I had for my Speccy, but as much as I might have enjoyed it I didn't have the opportunity to play too many other examples, owing mainly to the various systems I owned in my younger days. Since starting this series of features at Red Parsley, however, I keep hearing the same word in the comments after each post - Traz. These comments exclusively talk about it with reference to the Commodore 64 so I've always assumed it was one of those games I missed out on as a Speccy owner. Looking into it for this review, however, reveals that it was released on all of the 'Big Three' 8-bit micros, so how did I miss it? Could it be because it sucks arse? Are these C64-owning oafs playing an ill-mannered prank on me? If they are, it's their version I'm going to slate so let's find out (hee hee!).

Arcade Round-Up #2

It's been a while since I took a look at an 'adult' came here at Red Parsley - it's not really a subject I invest much time or thought in I suppose (no, really!) - but I did kind of stumble back into the murky world recently when I discovered... well, let's leave that as a surprise for a later post shall we? Before we get there, however, I thought it might be spiffy to return to the setting of the first such game I looked at and investigate some more of the few risqué arcade games that made it out, purely for the sake of completion you understand!

I had intended to look at each one individually, but as I should've guessed from my previous experiences with the genre, limited as they might've been, games that feature any adult material are generally rip-offs of existing games but with some boobs and stuff tacked on as well. It would've therefore been a bit of a waste of effort to devote a whole review to each one. To that end, here's a round-up of the five somewhat dubious examples that probably no one has ever played:

Block Gal (1987)

Any regular visitors here at RP should know of my fondness for bat 'n' ball games, so simply adding a bit o' skin to such a title must mean I'd still find it at least semi-spiffing, right? It makes sense in theory at least, but this effort, published by Sega no less, is the oldest game featured here so I don't hold out too much expectation for the adult content. Indeed, aside from a slightly sultry-looking (but fully-clothed) young lady on the title screen it was a while before I even saw anything at all, for Block Gal initially appears to be a completely normal, non-adult Breakout clone. Its stages feature all the usual stuff and there's a few minor innovations such as the colour of the bricks denoting how many times they need to be hit, but the only adult stuff I found was a pink-haired young lady sprawled on the ground after each stage. She's obscured by flowers at first but each stage you win removes one line of them until after the tenth stage she can be viewed in all her glory, but it's no more explicit than what's been seen in countless anime shows. As a bat 'n' ball game I quite enjoyed this one at first but after a while it reveals itself to be a bit limited and rough around the edges. Passable but don't play it if you're after sexy girlies doing inappropriate things! ... 6/10

Bat 'n' Ball Games #6

Robo-Squash (1990)
By: Atari Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Atari Lynx First Day Score: 16,200
Also Available For: Nothing

Considering the genre was one of the first ones ever created, there's been surprisingly few innovations in the world of bat 'n' ball games, but Atari, the very creators in question, tried doing just that with this slightly obscure release for their own Lynx 'handheld' (snigger). The objective does not, however, include the usual block-hitting tomfoolery that I had initially believed formed the basis of the game. Robo Squash is instead a tarted-up version of the very first bat 'n' ball game of them all, and indeed the very first popular video game full stop - Pong! Instead of the simple left-to-right-to-left-again gameplay of the original though, this example asks you to do the same thing but from an into-the-screen perspective! There's a bit more to it than that though, of course.

Bat 'n' Ball Games #5

Wizorb (2011)
By: Tribute Games Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: PC First Day Score: 952
Also Available For: Apple Mac, Xbox Live

As video games evolve over the years it's inevitable that advances in technology will see new genres born, and equally inevitable is that sadly a few older examples will be consigned to the past. One that I thought had gone the way of the latter is that of bat 'n' ball games, or brick-breakers, or Breakout clones, or whatever you prefer to call them. They originally came about as a one-player version of the first commercially successful game ever - Pong. This obviously makes them one of the oldest and most basic types of game around which shouldn't make their demise too surprising! But wait... what's this? As if from nowhere, a splendid indie developer by the name of Tribute Games has sought to revitalise the ailing genre with this, their very first game!

Bat 'n' Ball Games #4

Alleyway (1989)
By: Nintendo EAD Genre: Bat 'n' Ball Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo Game Boy First Day Score: 2,745
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: 3DS Virtual Console

For some reason the Game Boy's launch is one that I still have very clear memories of. Maybe it's because it was one of the few console launches that enticed me enough to buy the system in question. Actually, I think it was the unanimous praise being heaped on Tetris that most persuaded me, but what of the other launch titles? I didn't get around to playing many of them but I do remember they all looked ideally suited to the little grey handheld including this Breakout clone developed by the Game Boy designer himself, Gunpei Yokoi. It literally is a Breakout clone too, with everything being kept very simple by Nintendo's legendary designer. Games have come a long way since Atari's classic though, even ones of this type. Could he work the same magic on games as he could on the system that hosted them?

Bat 'n' Ball Games #3

Plump Pop (1987)
By: Taito  Genre: Bat 'n' Ball  Players: 1-2  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade  First Day Score: 65,210
Also Available For: PlayStation 2 (on compilation)

Arguably the first successful game ever was Pong which was a great game for two players, but what about solo gamers? They were soon catered for too when Atari adapted the game for the single player. The result? The all-time classic, Breakout! It wasn't long before clones started appearing, of course. Up until recently, every one of these 'bat 'n' ball' games that I had played quite literally featured a bat and a ball, just like Breakout itself, but as soon as a year after Atari's classic was unveiled, a game called Circus was released by Exidy. This replaced the bat with a see-saw and the ball with two small men (or 'people', I suppose) who bounced each other up and down on the see-saw, destroying the balloons above, which of course had replaced the bricks. It is on this game that the amusingly-named Plump Pop is based.

Bat 'n' Ball Games #2

Woody Pop (1991)
By: Sega  Genre: Bat 'n' Ball  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Sega Game Gear  First Day Score: 65,210
Also Available For: Master System

Nintendo's Game Boy was a instant success from the moment it was launched thanks to the wonders of its bundled game, Tetris, which was perfectly suited to the little white slab o' fun. When Sega released the Game Gear, it was not. Is this because it wasn't released with any games that were perfectly suited to it? In an attempt to determine this I took a look at one launch title recently, and here I'll have a look at another. Perhaps released to show up Nintendo's own bat 'n' ball game, Alleyway, which accompanied the Game Boy's launch, Sega's effort immediately demonstrated the main advantage the Gear Gear held over its rival - colour graphics! Indeed, much like Breakout, Arkanoid, and pretty much every other game of its type, Woody Pop features many different coloured bricks. Colour alone doesn't make a game though, so what else does it have to catch ones eye?

Game Gallery #4

Arkanoid (1987)
ZX Spectrum Version featured. Arcade version reviewed here.

As with many games of its time, Arkanoid was born in the arcades, but the version I spent by far the most time playing is this fine conversion for the Speccy. It doesn't look quite as nice, as you might expect, but it's got it where it counts. All stages and features from its arcade parent have been squeezed into the 48k of memory and mercifully it's even a little easier, awarding the player with four lives from the start rather than two. Having said that, I still doubt that I could've finished this game without the aid of the 'PBRAIN' cheat. So, thanks to that splendid bit of foresight by the programmers, I can present all 33 rounds of Arkanoid!

Bat 'n' Ball Games #1

Arkanoid (1986)
By: Taito  Genre: Bat 'n' Ball  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade  First Day Score: 27,690 (with control pad - eeek!)
Also Available For: NES, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple Mac, PC, Commodore 64, MSX, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Atari 8-bit, Apple II, TRS-80
Download For: Xbox Live Arcade, Wii Virtual Console, iPhone

The history of videogames is a convoluted one. Many disagree even on what constitutes the first ever example of a videogame, nevermind some of the more intricate facts and figures, but one thing that surely cannot be disputed is the first popular game. Computer Space, unveiled by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1971 brought gaming to the masses for the first time but it was too complicated for many users tastes. Realising this, the two talented engineers went back to the drawing board and returned the following year with Pong, which of course soon became a worldwide smash-hit. It's simple tennis-style gameplay was hugely enjoyable for two players but what about one?