Breakout is an arcade classic which was invented by Atari an amazing 31 years ago. A symbol of its enduring appeal is the amount of games that have been made – and indeed are still being made – based on the original format. There are many Breakout clones and variations on Softonic although there’s quite a variation in quality. The original concept was simple – a bouncing ball, a screen of bricks and a small paddle that you can move along the bottom of the screen. The aim is to bounce the ball off the paddle and destroy all the bricks by hitting them. The trick was to not let the ball hit the ground otherwise you lose a life.
DX-Ball 2 adds new life to the original injecting new colours and throwing lasers, canons and even fireballs into the fray. There are multi-player options and a choice of soundtracks. Invadazoid takes the Breakout theme and translates it into outer space with aliens instead of bricks and spaceships instead of a paddle. Meanwhile Jewel of Atlantis takes the theme, combines it with Match-3 and sets the scene underwater for a slightly more chilled-out but infinitely more challenging game.
For purists and die-hard fans of the original, then one of the closest modern versions is Ball Attack although it also includes weapons with which to destroy the bricks. Finally, probably the most faithful to the original is Jardinains which returns Breakout to it’s original simple format although bizarrely, uses garden gnomes instead of bricks!
