Posts Tagged game

Part of the 100 Games That Have Affected Me series.

My favourite 16-bit era Arkanoid-style game. It certainly has its flaws though (namely: nasty powerdowns like the frequent R for reverse and the green ball of death, and invisible bricks). It also features terrible but catchy music that feels like you’ve known it all your life after three minutes of hearing it.

The ball rarely goes very fast, which is nice. You can relax and play this game unlike most bat and ball games, which become a bit manic (I don’t really believe that matching a fast ball’s horizontal position with a shaky input device is all that fun).

I played this game in lunch breaks in the last year of primary school. I wonder how/if the game ever made any money; it was released for an expensive platform that was seldom seen outside of schools (and so was rarely used for gaming) and there isn’t much written about it on the web, even though I’m sure it was one of the more popular Archie games! If Simon B. Heather/SB Heather ever happens to read this, perhaps you could give me an email or a quick interview about your experiences with the gaming industry and where it all led.

A lingering, mysterious memory I have about this game is playing it one lunchtime and hearing speech and music coming from the speaker. It sounded like a clip from a radio broadcast, but I could easily be misremembering that. We were all quite spooked about it and couldn’t figure it out. On playing the game again today I was able to make it speak when I turned the sound off (it played a clip from a film or something) so perhaps there is more sampled speech in there and we triggered it with a high score. Fun!

2 games posted since June 18, 2011. At this rate the 1000 Games That Have Affected Me series will be complete on October 4, 2227.