1001 VG Book #03 - "Breakout" - (1976)

commentary about the book article for:

#3 = Breakout (1976)
- by SP (Steve Poole)
- Arcade

  - First note - the picture in the book is actually from "Super Breakout" - which is a 1978 sequel to Breakout that introduced three game modes. The picture above is the original Breakout from 1976.

  - The article mentions how many games still show the influence of Breakout - including Peggle. Really? Peggle? How did they make that stretch? It's fine by me to point out some of the closely related games, such as Arkanoid, a game clearly in the genre and tradition of Breakout. But to stretch influence beyond a clear connection is to ignore the many genres and other games that have all had their own influence in this great industry. There are many games that draw inspiration from many sources.

MY QUICK REVIEW:
Breakout is a great game... makes Pong style gameplay fun without an opponent. Adds a little bit more to do than just getting the ball past your opponent's paddle, too.  At first you just want to keep the ball in play, but as the blocks get eliminated you really have to get good at hitting the edges of your paddle for finely-tuned aiming.

We have a risk-to-reward here as the edges of the paddle put you closer to just barely missing the ball, but if you don't you might never get all the blocks.  Furthermore, once the ball goes above the top red block line, your paddle shrinks in half!  So there is clearly a skillset needed to actually eliminate the entire 112 brick wall.  And if you DO...  you have a 2nd full set of blocks to eliminate.  But here's the cool thing - if you clear the 2nd set, you've actually beaten the game.

I also love that Breakout was part of what inspired the "minimal" level of graphics necessary for the Apple II.  Steve Wozniak, famed Apple I & Apple II designer, had stated that when designing the Apple II it should be at least capable of playing a decent game of breakout.  There's also the crazy story during the creation of Breakout... how Steve Jobs got Wozniak to implement a tight design... pocketing a big bonus for reducing the total number of chips. But then Steve lies to Woz about how much the bonus was and pays him his half of the "lied-about amount" (which varies a bit based on who's telling the story).  Still... crazy stuff.  Crazy history. 

VIDEO:

(Breakout original cabinet gameplay)

(Peggle gameplay example)

While Peggle is a really fun game, I don't think it has much in common with Breakout other than "bouncing balls".  But you're really not controlling much of anything except the initial shot from the top of the screen.