SAM CENTRE

Salutations SAM fans! It's time to wave your arms in the air and welcome JON PILLAR. Hurrah!

Revelation
£9.99
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

If you've checked out the cover demo, you'll already know what a nifty little number Batz 'n' Balls is. Basically, David Gommeren has done for Arkanoid what he previously did for Tetris - jazzed it up and given it a new lease of life. The game contains 150 levels, bonus screens, power-up icons and a multitude of tricks and tweaks. Graphics are bold and smooth, although there's really not that much you can do with screens full of bricks, and the soundtrack is one of those subtle bass numbers that bypass the ears and slide straight into the brain. Gameplay is tough, perhaps too tough, but jolly rewarding as you fight on to discover just what the game has in store for you next. Thank heavens for the password system, which allows you to jump straight to every fifth screen.

Apart from your own lack of bat-jiggling talent, the main obstacles between you and success are the aliens that zip constantly round the screen. They're harmless - you can zap them with a touch of the bat - but if the ball hits them then it rebounds off at a random angle. This results in the kind of exclamations that shatter both light bulbs and illusions. If you think these little fellows are bad, wait 'til you meet the end-of-section baddies. These are absolutely massive aliens that fly around shooting as you attempt to zap them with a well-aimed ball. This is the best bit of the game, it's just like a mini Space Invaders. Coo, eh?

Whizzy and whizzo, this mindlessly playable game takes Breakout about as far as it can go. For maximum effect, invest in a mouse. It'll translate your panicked movements perfectly, and adds to the fun no end. Make no mistake, Batz isn't going to convert new fans to the genre but current ones will lap it up.

SAM
Revelation
£9.99 disk only

Doctor doctor, I'm being haunted by ancient computer games. What do you mean I'm suffering from Break Outitis? You want me to play Batz 'N' Balls four times a day to cure it... okay. MARK CASWELL does a jump to the left and then a step to the right to enter a handy time warp and play the game...

Back in the mists of time, when the world was young and I were a wee nipper, there appeared a game so popular that over the years it's been copied umpteen times.

Break Out, Arkanoid and Giganoid are just three of the guises that the old bat, ball and loadsa walls games have taken. And Batz 'N' Balls is the latest of the genre.

BOUNCING BALLS!

You control a bat which moves left and right at the bottom of the screen, and the idea (for those who've been off-planet for centuries) is to bounce a ball up the screen and destroy different coloured blocks.

You start with a ball on the bat and ten extra balls in reserve (you never know when you might need replacements with our Ed). There are five rows of blocks, some destructible with a single hit while others need whacking several times before disintegration.

HELP IS ON THE WAY

As certain blocks are destroyed they release icons, which bestow limited super powers to the player's bat if collected. These include a sticky coating for the bat, larger or smaller bats, a gun attachment, multiple balls (an obligatory 'fnarrr!' here, methinks) and an icon that bounces the ball off the bottom of the screen. Of course, if the ball slips past the bat without a bounce icon, a life (ball) is lost.

The brick wall ain't your only problem, though. There are plenty of small creatures that appear at the top of the screen and make life hell when you break through the top bricks. Their main purpose is to either block the path of the ball or the player (major flippin' headache).

When all the blocks are wasted the player moves to the next level to whack them balls around (I'll resist the temptation).

STEP FORWARD, SAM

I've been on the computer scene a long, long time and I've seen these Break Out clones come and go (along with several civilisations). But as this is first time this genre has appeared on the SAM, I'll forgive Revelation.

I've always been a sucker for this game type and there's no doubt Bats Balls is very good. It's colourful (positively eye-warping in places) but the backgrounds don't change very much, just blocks, blocks and more blocks.

At last the SAM's catching up with the rest of the games-playing world, and about time it you ask me.

MARK [82%]

Here we go with Break Out one more time. This has got to be the fastest, most souped-up version to date. The grand-daddy of video games has sure come a long way since those prehistoric early days, many years BC (Before CRASH). Far removed from that leisurely game we all know and love, here there's all kinds of things going on as you try to knock the blocks off. Super stuff except it's so action packed that it's too bloomin' hard. The ball(s) shoot around at speeds in excess of Jim Davidson's driving and bounce off the blocks at angles even Stephen Hendry never knew existed. Mastermind concentration (and a fair bit of luck) is needed just to keep the ball up, let alone find time to grab those bonus bricks, zap the Space invader thingies and so forth. And to make things even trickier, some of the bricks are the same colour as the background so you need an eagle eye to be in with a ghost of a chance. Nonetheless, gamemasters and masochists alike may like to give it a bash. If you can handle the stress, that is.
ALAN [76%]

Revelation £9.99

Hey-ho! Another day, another Arkanoid Rip-off. But wait! This one's actually quite good. Very good in fact. The gameplay's quite simple. Bounce a ball against a wall with a tiny bat, destroying the bricks. When certain bricks are destroyed, an icon drops down the screen which you have to touch with the bat to get an extra feature to help or hinder you. For example, reversed control or a bigger bat. The game has some very nice touches. For example, when you press break on the title screen you get an extra little message at the top of the screen. The only fault I can find with Batz and Ballz is the rather distracting way that the score overlaps the bat. The graphics are neat, sound is fab and the whole thing has a very deep polish. A+ Stuff.