Overall Score 64%
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Acky's XP Breakout
As you might have guessed, Acky's XP Breakout is a Breakout/Arkanoid style game. The aim, for those who don't know, is to destroy a wall with an ever bouncing ball.
For a modern Breakout remake, the graphics were a little poor. The text for example is very jaggy, there are very few special visual effects apart from a moving starfield behind the play area. The graphics are not terrible by any standard, but somehow I was expecting more from a modern remake of an old game.
The usual game options and vast array of pickups are there. The big difference is XP mode. There are several bonuses that can be attained in different ways, the pad bonus for example can be attained when you hit 10 bricks in a row without hitting the walls. To activate XP mode you need to complete a shopping list of 5 types of bonuses.
XP mode is difficult to attain and becomes a surprisingly important goal for the player. The feel and speed of the ball is about right, and the prediction pickup is a particularly nice one, but I didn't sense anything substantially above average here. Notably, that last brick remains instead of exploding, and some of the levels can be boring.
There are lots of options, including a level editor but there are a few problems too (the help option on the menu effectively locked up my computer and I had to shut down the program). I also found the online registration system awkward.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to justify a high review score for a breakout game unless it comes up to an exceptional standard. Acky's XP Breakout is an average game with some new ideas that fans of the genre might enjoy.
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