So, you want to be an ARCADE champion?

Although I haven’t actually been on holiday, as you can see there hasn’t been an update for a week or so – don’t worry, as ever they’ll be back and flowing soon enough.

Playing rules: Difficulty: Normal. Start: 3 lives. Continues: Not allowed


Current Record holders
1st: 1,730,320 - Zachary Hample - 2002
...
4th: 118,860 - Brian Laskiewicz - 2000

Wha? Arkanoid again! Tournament? Ye gods what’s going on? Well -Did you not get the email? The challenge has been changed – it’s now “So, you want to be an ARKANOID champion?”, Sorry about the confusion and all that it just seemed like the best thing to do. Oh go on then…..not really – I couldn’t lie to *you*.

Yes, we have our third Arkanoid game in a row, but before you get too upset it’s actually a lot worse than that. Arkanoid Tournament is pretty much EXACTLY the same game as the original Arkanoid, just with different, harder levels and slightly faster balls (wahey!). So what are we going to do then? Skip it? Nosiree bob, we’re going to play it!

Looking at the records presents an immediate puzzle. Considering this is the tournament edition, why on earth is the record score HIGHER than the standard edition? Surely giving it all the big, releasing a seperate hard version would suggest that it’s actually, well you know, harder? Regardless, it’s the same chap as first time Zachery that has the record, so again I would imagine the score is well out of the reach of us mere mortals.

And yes, the game is exactly the same. The title screen is different, but the intro and the game itself is identical. Only difference is that the first level looks like this

See all of those Grey blocks, that makes the level bloody tricky that does. I don’t know for sure, but I’m sure the ball is more likely to speed up if it hits a grey block than a normal one. Add to that the fact that grey blocks as well as taking two hits to kill, also don’t give you any power-ups. All in all it adds up to a recipe for a stingy, fast balled level – and that’s exactly what it is. Well, that’s not absolutely true – it doesn’t turn out to be as stingy as I expected, power-ups are quite plentiful actually, but man the ball speeds up a bit sharpish.

Playing the modern version in between the two Arkanoids has really highlighted the difficulty difference, the original game is proper tricky, and this tournament edition is faster as well. I’m a bloody mess, thats what I am!

Saying that, the level does lend itself quite nicely to the score whoring technique. Because there are so many grey blocks, you stay on the level forever and the potential for hoovering up power-ups is massive. In fact on my first go I reached 20,000 and my bonus life without even getting near the end of the first level!

And then I died a goodun.

Score: 24,260

Crikey, this is going to be a quick one – and an easy one as far as screenshots are concerned. Back in for the second go and immediately that proves to be wrong as a lovely pink “B” falls down allowing me to skip the level and go straight for level 2. Not the best way to get a score, but I want to at least see another level.

Quite suprising it is too.

What on earth does the American flag have to do with anything? I don’t know the history of the tournament edition, but Taito are a very Japanese company and up until now it’s been a pretty Japanese style game (I can’t explain what that actually entails, so just take my word for it). A little bit of investigation explains all immediately, and by “immediately” I *mean* “immediately”. Here is the artwork for the arcade machine:

I bet that 1987 was handy back in the day, just in case no-one had a calender to hand or something. So, this version was licensed by ROMSTAR and released in the US as a cocktail machine interestingly (cocktail means that it was an arcade machine built into a glass table, with the screen facing upwards – I hate the bloody things, but they are quite popular with people that don’t have much space).

Anyway, with that mystery uncovered, it’s actually quite a pointless level. Oh, it’s not easy by any means, the blocks are quite close to the bottom of the screen and the ball accelerates at a silly rate. Needless to say this game is over quickly as well.

Score: 31,980

Ok, third and last go – i’m bloody sick of Arkanoid now, especially when it is clearly making me its bitch. using a cross between the power-up farming and the “get-me-the-fuck-to-the-next-level-please” techniques I desperately try and get to the third level, if not just to flesh this entry out a bit and attempt to stave off your boredom of reading about bloody Arkanoid with another pretty picture. It was a close run thing, but I only bloody well did it.

Looking past the fact that I now feel quite pathetic celebrating getting to the 3rd level - this is clearly the level that tells the player to go and fuck himself. Just like in the first game the 3rd level is again mostly invincible gold blocks, just this time they are arranged in such a way as to maximise the pain. Spare a thought also for the baddies in this level, they can float about as much as they like – but they’re not escaping from that gold blocked wall no way, no how. I nearly complete the level, honest – but alas no more pretty pictures for us.

Score: 36,640

Damn, that was hard work. If anything, revisiting a version of the first game highlights just how much nicer to play the modern sequel was. However, I think I have found the reason why the score is actually higher on this clearly harder version. I reckon there is a skill plateau with this game where you simply become unbeatably good at it. The large record holders have obviously reached this and on doing so, this harder version allows them more opportunity to score big, hence the larger scores. It’s not even funny just how far I am away from this, but to be fair on me I can’t remember playing the actually arcade game – maybe the spinner makes it a little easier? A long shot, clutching at straws as I go, but I will leave Arkanoid now (yes there are NO more Arkanoid games I promise) and see how I get on if I meet the real machine.

I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t playing Arkanoid, roll on the next game I say.

Playing rules: Difficulty: Normal. Start: 3 lives. Continue Play: With/With-Out. Game Style: D. Continues: Not allowed

Current Record holders
1st: 906,640 - Dwayne Richard - 1997
2nd: 69,040 - Ron Corcoran - 2001
3rd: 44,070 - Brien King - 2001

Two reactions can be expected here. Either, “Arkanoid again?”  or “What happened to Arkanoid 2 – Revenge of DOH?”. If it’s the second one, then well done Mr Memory - Revenge of DOH was the game that I remember the most on my Atari ST and while very similar to the first game it had some really nice minor improvements, such as being able to choose your route through the levels (neatly avoiding the getting stuck situation I found on the first one) and some funkier power-ups. Well it’s not in the book for some reason, so we leap past it straight to this bugger, Arkanoid Returns.

(A cookie here to anyone who notices that Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh could have still been on the list regardless of this game as alphabetically it comes afterwards anyway. Well done, have your cookie and sit over there – I’ve written the intro now and I wouldn’t be able to mention it anywhere else anyway, so it stays.)

Taito left it 10 years before releasing this sequel, I wonder how many of those years were spent on the story - have they managed to flesh out the meagre effort from the last game? Well, no. No they haven’t. The title is a load of bollocks for a start – “Arkanoid returns”. Does he? I don’t see him. Keep up Taito doughboys, you called the destroyed mothership Arkanoid not the bat. The bat was called Vaus remember? The bat returns, yes (as does the pesky DOH) but the mothership does not. See what you’ve done? You’ve fucked the whole thing up haven’t you? Did you learn *nothing* from the constant confusion that is Frankenstein? Victor Frankenstein is the geezer that CREATED the monster, not the monster himself – Arkanoid is the mothership that blew up 10 years ago, not the bat. Gah! I mean really, it’s this level of detail that people care about, isn’t it guys? Hello? I said “isn’t it guys!”. Ahem, maybe it’s just me then. Move on!

So - we can see that the story is non existent, so what have they been doing for 10 years? Well take a look at the screenshot at the top there. Notice how fluorescent the graphics look? That’s nothing pal – the whole game has been given a sickly dayglo (wow, I didn’t know that dayglo were an actual company!) overhaul and everything in the game now looks like someone has been sick on it. In comparison to the original game, which had crisp, clean graphics, the sequel looks awful, absolutely awful. Not good; not good at all.

Thankfully I’ll look away from the game for a second and take a peak at the records. Only three records for this game, and I can see that the Arkanoid master Zachary Hample has kept well clear of the whole thing. Dwayne has happily jumped into 1st spot though with what looks like another mighty score. Again I think my aim should be 100,000 – which in this small list would be 2nd; I’ll take that.

Problem is, none of the signs look good for this game. The screenshots look awful, the records list is minute, the record holder for the original won’t play it – looks like this baby might be a bit rubbish.

As ever, with an open mind, there is only one way to find out – get stuck in!

Soon as the game starts up you get a little intro explaining the story. There are no words in this one and it essentially boils down to this: Your little bat Vaus is floating through space minding his own business, obviously celebrating it’s recent pimp upgrade as it now has spinny bits on either end, when out of nowhere comes DOH (the big face thing) and for no reason he sucks you up inside him and off you go again, the cad! That’s it. Nice one. This all goes on before you put your money in – i.e as part of the attract sequence, so my guess would be that people would walk away from the machine at this point and who can blame them? Not I. I stride up to the (pretend, emulated) machine and put my (virtual, not real) money in without fear of lameness (mainly because I have to) and off we go.

Fuck me.

The game jumps straight in to the first level with what I can only describe as a hideous 80′s gameshow jingle – it is truly horrible and LOUD. Thankfully it stops and if that was anything to go by, the fact that there is no music to this game is very much appreciated. Jesus though – the screenshots were garish enough but now it’s in front of me in all it’s glory it’s so much worse. It’s like “Arkanoid – fuzzy, special needs edition” – everything is uneccessarily large and the graphics have no definition to them at all – like a bad Amstrad game. Oh dear.

Through squinted eyes I manage to get going, and thankfully gameplay wise they haven’t changed a great deal (not that you can change a bat and ball game that much, but I know what I mean). The ball is still awfully fast and the blocks and power-ups all look roughly familiar - except that the power-ups are now massive ugly squares that look, well a bit stupid. No need to patronise me game, I managed to work out the different power-ups in the last game and the blocks were no-where near as large, I mean really – why do they find the…….WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? ARGHHHHH!

Silence is golden they say. They were right. This game DOES have background music after all, and it kicks in after roughly 30 seconds of play – and by the gods it is AWFUL. Imagine the worst kind of elevator musak – jazz it up a bit and make it LOUD and you’re not far from the mark. I would have happily traded my ears in on the spot for a couple of magic beans if I could, but sadly a trader was nowhere to be found (I mean its Friday, nobody works on a Friday. What was I thinking?). Why on earth did Taito think this music was a good idea? I mean *really*.

Stupidly I stick by my beliefs that I should play the games as they were intended and I leave the volume up. Not long to the end of the first level by the looks of it, at least give the next level’s music a chance. Only the music doesn’t stop at the end of the level, in fact it doesn’t even skip a beat. It’s almost as if it was added as an afterthought over the top of the game - after all, Taito obviously wanted to make your eyes bleed by making the game look so horrible, why let your ears off the hook? Why indeed.

Happily when you lose a life the music stops however, it’s only a brief respite and soon enough your ears are back in rapesville tennessee as the music starts again from the beginning. Game over couldn’t come quickly enough.

Score: 20,480

What a horrible experience that was. 

Yet, there was some endearing about the game that I couldn’t put my finger on. Therefore my next go I make an effort to get past the bad graphics and sound (at least it isn’t anything significant eh?) and play the game properly. And whadya know, the game is actually a bit of a grower. The few new power ups are quite funky and a few of the older ones have had a revamp. While the “L” laser, the sticky “C” and the elongated “E” are all the same, the “D” has taken a visit to crazy town. Instead of splitting the ball into 3 it now explodes the ball into a million (ok, about 8 ) balls that scatter all over the screen at stupid speeds. This is a whole new dimension as it clears the levels pretty damn quickly and if you can collect a “D” while the ball is trapped near the top of the screen then, as the kids on the street would say: the blocks? you fuck ‘em up real good. Downside to this is that on collecting another power-up all of the balls bar one disappears immediately, which is a bit shit. How the game decides which one to keep I have no idea.

The new additions that I can see are a mixed bag. There is a “G” which turns the ball into a big red fireball thingie, which breaks through rows of blocks without bouncing. While powerful there were times where I lost a life purely because I expected it to bounce and it didn’t. Also there is a “M” which turns the ball into a green thing which oddly behaves exactly the same as the red one – god only knows the diference there. Finally there is the “T”. Now this one is ace; on collecting this a forcefield appears on the bottom of the screen behind your bat. This is in effect an extra life as it will deflect the ball if you miss it, which helps the game no end - it even stays there if you subsequently collect other power-ups and really does help alleviate the frustration somewhat.  

Anyway, enough of the background – the second go is a lot more successful. I try to use the power-up farming technique and it sort of works despite the absolute mess that the “D” power-up makes of the blocks – it’s almost like a bloody smart bomb. The levels are a lot more forgiving and to be honest i’m not sure why that is. There are certainly a lot more indestructible blocks than before, but even levels that have some tricky to reach places don’t drag on too long and somehow avoid a lot of the annoyances the original suffered from. That’s not to say the game is much easier, it really isn’t, but you do seem to flow through the levels a bit better. That being said, I still get killed before too long.

Score: 32,720

A few other new parts start to show themselves after a few plays. I was puzzled somewhat when one time my forcefield (thank you “T”) disappeared even though the ball was nowhere near it. Then one of the last remaining blocks was cleared, again with the ball nowhere near. What was going on? Well, it turns out that some of the enemies explode into ball like things themselves when hit, and they then break blocks and stuff as they float about. A nice touch indeed. As before the enemies don’t hurt you if they happen to hit your bat, but at least on one occasion I comically died when I went to deflect one of the ball enemies instead of the ball despite the fact that they are multicoloured and look quite different. Oh how we all laughed in the Arkanoid pub afterwards (wankers).

Despite everything, including myself, I actually begin to really like the game – which is some feat considering how much I was repulsed by pretty much all of it initially. After my third go ( with another similar score), I played again – and again. Before I knew it I had played it a dozen times, which although fun isn’t really what I expected at all with this one. Rather than list all of the scores, I’ll let you into the secret of the best one.

Score: 54,950

Yeah I know, again a failure as far as my target was concerned – but it isn’t far off 2nd place as you can see – and for now I’m happy with that.

Now for a Jerry Springer style summing up moment:

Sometimes a game can look ugly, feel ugly – hell it can even sound ugly. That doesn’t make it bad. All too often games are dismissed, especially sequels, all too readily. Would it be too much for us to sit back and actually try playing these games before kicking them to the curb (girlfriend – uh-huh uh-huh)? I don’t think so and nor should you. Ok, so the game has awfully garish graphics. Ok, the designers have obviously taken you for some sort of an idiot that can’t be trusted to understand what a small block with a letter on it means or that a gold block is indestructable even without a little dot on it to seperate it from the others. That doesn’t make them bad people. We as human beings should try to look past the faults and see the beauty within. I know you haven’t tried it, but just LOOK at the attract sequence demo and marvel at the wonderful looking 2 player mode where you have both bats on screen at once, one behind the other. Doesn’t that look like a barrel load of fun? Sure it does. It’s a good game, it will just take a bit of effort on your part to see that – and I would say that was an effort well spent.

That’s all for tonight. Take care of yourselves………..and each other.

Phew – that’s Arkanoid done and dusted then, we already know that Revenge of DOH isn’t on the list so we can move on……….Or can we?

Playing rules: Difficulty: Easy. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life at 20,000, 60,000 and every 60,000 points. Continues: Not allowed
Special Rules: Additional lives may also be earned by collection of the "P" capsule.

Dip-Switches: 1=OFF/ON [Cocktail/Upright]; 2-7 = OFF; 9 = ON

Current Record holders
1st: 1,658,110 - Zachary Hample - 2000
...
19th: 108,275 - Mark Nason - 2004
20th: 28,730 - Mr. Kelly R.Flewin - 2005
21st: 4,520 - Dori Nordsletten - 2005

I would be suprised if there are many people that don’t remember this game in one form or another, I certainly do – both in the arcade and on my trusty Atari ST. For those that don’t recall or simply need a recap, it’s really rather simple; Arkanoid is a jazzy version of the classic game “Breakout”, (which itself, it could be argued, was a single player version of the grand-daddy himself “Pong”). You control a bat and the idea is to bounce a ball about the levels and into each of the blocks that just happen to be knocking about. Once you have cleared the screen of blocks you move on to the next level. That’s it.

Now, with such a simple mechanic, you really would need a fair bit of “jazz” to make it particularly exciting – especially as it is now 1986, the land of pigs in planes, magic paint rollers and all manner of crazy schenanigans. Well, don’t fear - Taito aren’t stupid, they know that as well as we do. However, they don’t just want to throw loonytune shit at you just for the sake of it, oh no. Taito want to tell us a story, get us involved in the game at an emotional level, BE the bat, live the dream – for their vision to work they need a rock solid narrative to keep us gripped. To this end, the second you start the game the story begins with a snazzy cut-scene:

“The era and time of this story is unknown”

Not the best beginning to be honest. As “setting the scene” goes that feels like a bit of a copout – “No idea when this happened, sorry guv” isn’t the most effective way of getting the viewer gripped. But hang on you foolish person  you, maybe that’s just the genius storyteller at work; no need to furnish you with details that are of no importance to the story - I mean if it had said “The year was 2099″ then it wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference, in fact there would be an element of mystery shattered in front of your very eyes. Oh, bravo Taito - pray continue.

“after the mothership “Arkanoid” was destroyed a spacecraft “vaus” scrambled away from it”

See? Now we’re into the meaty stuff. That blue thing glowing red faintly at the bottom of the screen? That’s the mothership Arkanoid that is – the name of the game no less. And that little “bat” thing flying out of the top? That’s your ship, called “vaus” – obviously designed by some French bloke. Seems odd then that the game isn’t called Vaus, i.e after your ship rather than the name of the briefly mentioned and imediately destroyed mothership mind you. Hold on though, who’s to say that there isn’t a full and detailed backstory to all of this that will reveal itself tantilisingly throughout the game? Not I that’s for sure.

“but only to be trapped in space warped by someone………”

Oh.

I think we’re taking the piss now with the mystery – “someone”? Who? My nan? Hitler? My nan, Hitler?

I mean, make an effort people. Why bother with the detail on the mothership and the French bat if you can’t be arsed to flesh out a story for goodness sakes? What makes it worse is that the game begins at this point – leaving you with a bat and ball game, unmotivated and confused. It took all of my will and strength to not break down and cry right there on the spot let me tell you. Happily however, the kid in me doesn’t need motivation to want to break stuff with a bat and ball and the story was soon a long distant memory.

Before I get into that though, let’s have a quick peek at the scores. Now at my eventful trip to FUNSPOT earlier in the year I had the pleasure of very briefly meeting the world record holder, Zachary, and even saw him play a tiny bit of Arkanoid while I was there. I believe he may have even beaten the record held in the book, but I won’t worry too much about that – I’m sure I’ll get nowhere near his score anyway. At the lower end of the scores it all looks a bit more welcoming – that bottom score could be beaten using just my knob I reckon (not that I’d recommend doing such thing of course) – but it does ramp up rather quickly. I’ve included the next few scores up to show you what I mean. From all the way from about 10th to 19th the scores are all roughly 100,000 – so if I can get past that barrier that puts me in amongst the big boys. Well, not the big boys – they have over a million, but close enough for now at least.

Hang on though spanky, before you go on – If I remember rightly, the arcade had a spinner for it’s controls, and I recall seeing that your X-Arcade doesn’t have one of those. How come you are even playing this one when you’ve previously skipped games that you haven’t been able to play accurately?

Well that’s quite simple actually, Mr badly realised and presented voice of the reader. I only skip games that are either impossible to play under emulation, or involve some sort of physical interaction that would be lacking at home. By that token, the skiing games were skipped for example because as much of the skill is controlling the big stupid skiis as it is playing the actual game. Arkanoid (and indeed most spinner games) can be accurately and fairly controlled using the mouse, so in my book that makes them fair game. So ner.

And play I do with a firm 100,000 score target set in my mind.

First thing that strikes me is just how bloody fast the ball moves. I had taken some comfort from the difficulty setting of “easy” listed in the rules, but let me tell you – it’s anything but easy. The ball starts off slow enough, but before you know it it’s ricocheting all over the place at great pace. Luckily the bat, sorry the mighty “vaus”, is nice and controllable but it becomes clear very early on that a knowledge of angles is needed here to survive; that and the reactions of a cat on speed.

Unfortunately these qualities are not that forthcoming and I flounder about like a drunk idiot, always on the edge, never comfortable with where the ball is going to land or indeed where it is going to go once I hit it. Luckily for people like me, there is a helping hand in the guise of power up capsules that appear every now and then once you break a block. On this first level alone, they are falling all over the place – and on collecting an “E” my bat stretches to twice the width and the world is at peace again. All of the problems that I was having are gone – keeping control of the ball is a piece of piss now and I stride on confidently breaking blocks like nobody’s business. That is until I foolishly collect a falling “D” capsule and not only does my bat shrink to normal size again, but the ball splits into 3. You would have thought that this would be good news, I mean I now have three times as many chances to avoid losing a life surely? That would indeed be correct however, the sheer shock of my manhood being shrunk combined with the extra pressure of 3 bouncing balls (I’m going to leave the euphemism on that one) causes me to pretty much freeze with indecision leaving all three balls to fall. Bloody Nora.

I make a mental note to look up what each of these power up capsules does and strive on with my second life.

By this time some floating enemy things have started to appear from the top of the screen – for now they are safely trapped behind a single layer of grey blocks, but on hitting said blocks twice the barrier is breached and they come floating down towards me. That’s all I need, another bloody distraction, and jesus what a distraction they are. I quickly lose another life as the pressure of avoiding the enemies as well is too much for me and I weave away from the ball when a rather threatening rotating blue triangle thingie comes my way.

I can hear the more Arkanoid knowledgeable amongst us calling me a fucking tart from here. Yes, I know the enemies don’t hurt – well to be more accurate I know *now* as a few clatter into me at the beginning of my last life with absolutely no effect. Makes me feel a little soppy for losing a life dodging one, but I recognise that, and that’s the key to recovery that is, or something, so we shall speak of it no more. NO MORE.

In fact: I laugh at their pathetic ships. They may have the technology to create pretty spinny blue triangles, whoopie do – look at me. When it comes to trying to hurt a stupid bat shaped ship called the vaus however, they’re all a bunch of poofs. “Chase me I’m a daffodil” I hear them call as they float about, well I’m not scared of you so there……oh.

You guessed it, one of the fuckers deflects my ball off just as I was lining up to hit it. GAME OVER

Score: 18,320

Right, I’m not having that – straight back in. Hang on though cowboy, let’s look those power up capsules up first; and because I’m such a lovely lad – here they are in all their glory:

S – Slow : slows down the energy ball.
L – Laser : enables the vaus to fire laser beams.
C – Catch : catches the ball and shoots it when you want.
B – Break : allow player to move to next playfield.
E – Expand : expands the vaus.
P – Player : gains an additional vaus.
D – Disrupt : splits the energy ball into three particles.

Right then. I already know that the “E” is a winner, but I like the sound of the “P” and the “B” especially.

And what do you know, the very first capsule that falls down on my second go is a “B”. Ok, it’s pink, but I won’t let that stop me collecting the bugger forthwith. However, and believe me this is a major theme throughout this game, I can’t collect it. Why? Well, I want to collect it and all that, but the ball is heading towards the bottom of the screen waaaaaaaayyyyy over the other side. Maybe I can collect the capsule and then leap across the screen and save the ball? Hang on though, avoiding losing a life is more important. What I’ll do is bounce the ball and then whizz back here just in time to get the capsule! Is there enough time for that though? Maybe I should just get the ball, there’ll be another very valuable “B” in a minute anyway I’m sure. Ok, I’ll get the ball and see how it goes. Oh – too late. Neither it is then.

This genuinely happens throughout the WHOLE game. While I’m convinced that with a bit of skill you can make sure that the ball is directed in the same general direction as the pickups, therefore making both options possible, it’s beyond me most of the time. Any sort of delay or greed will pretty much always lead to a lost life, so you really have to keep such desires in check and get that ball – Safety first and all that. Of course what tends to happen is that you get the ball and then slap across the screen in a last ditch attempt to get the power up as well and just miss it. Depending on your present company there is an optional stage here where you pretend that you didn’t really want it anyway, but you can skip that one – I certainly do, I find a nice healthy dose of swearing is the best approach in this situation regardless of whether my nan is in the room or not.

It’s not all doom and gloom though – I get through to the 2nd level this time with some well earned laser fire (stick the “L” on the good list as well) and all is well again - I get an extra life at 20,000 as well, which was nice.

The second level is a bugger, first row of blocks are all silver (therefore needing 2 hits each to break) except the extreme right one, which is a normal red. It’s clear that the idea is to get the ball through the red block and let it bounce around at the top for a while as you sit below, safely picking up the power-up capsules as they fall like cherries. Fall like cherries I said. Fall like cherries. FALL LIKE FUCKING CHERRIES ALREADY!! Glowing with joy that I actually manage to aim the ball where I wanted, the game decides to fuck me in the ear and not give me a single power-up for a good 30 seconds. Blocks are breaking all over the place, don’t worry about that – the ball is going mental at this stage, but for some reason the second level is stinge town when it comes to bonuses. Eventually a “S” floats down – almost as a peace offering, but it proves entirely worthless as although the ball does slow down, the respite lasts all but half a second before the ball bounces off the back wall and speeds up suddenly –  even faster than it was before the “S” in fact.

Without the bonuses to prop me up, I’m truly knackered and soon enough the ball escapes back down from the top of the screen and screams past me into the void.

Score: 28,150

Fuck me this game is tricky. My 100,000 aim is looking a LONG way away. Time for some more boning, time to look up some tips. Ok, that’s interesting. Apparently the key to a high score is to whore the bonuses. What that means is that you collect every single bonus you see, while actively ignoring their benefits – i.e purposely losing 2 of the 3 balls immediately or not shooting with the laser. Each one is worth 1,000 points, so the more of them you can farm the better. Interesting indeed, but I am concerned that it will leave me in a bit of trouble as so far it has been the power-ups that have been helping me stay alive. Hey ho, sink or swim as they say – I need to do *something* to get that score up that’s for damn sure. Also the tips recommend that you avoid hitting the ball onto the back wall as much as you can, as that is where the major speed up happens. They also chillingly say that if you have collected a few “S” power-ups and the ball is going nice and slow, be prepared for a massive surge of speed the minute it hits the back wall. Nice. I’ll worry about that later I think, let’s concentrate on the scoring.

And it works! curiously I even get to the 3rd level using this technique this time, and the score is much better. Two things though:

1) Level 3 is a complete cunt.
2) Without the benefit of power-ups you may, like me, find yourself bouncing around for EVER like a plum whilst trying to get the last few blocks on a level. So scared of missing the ball, I tended to keep the angles simple and it is suprisingly easy to get the same angle again and again each time you hit the ball. (Of course if you actually *wanted* to do this at any stage, the bugger would no doubt fly all over the place). This leaves you desperately trying to vary the angle a little bit so that you can hit the last few blocks without missing the thing altogether, all the time watching the ball speed up more and more. In the end you actually WANT the ball to bounce off of the enemies (of which with an screen empty of blocks they are EVERYWHERE) just for a welcome change of angle.

As you may have gathered from point 1, I died at level 3.

Score: 40,300

That’s better, almost halfway to my target score.

Now, as it has been a while since the last update – I decided to play on. Not just a few times, but 19 times in total. See, I was convinced that level 3 was where I hit a brick wall (literally, ho ho!) – so I was determined to get past it and get my score doubled at least. How did I get on? Well it sort of worked.

Seeing as most of you will only see the first 3 levels, I shall stick some pretty pictures up to briefly explain the challenges with each one.

This is the first level. See how harmless it looks? Well for the first dozen blocks or so it is. Prepare to be showered with gifts – either take ‘em all for the score or stick with the one that you like. If you are a fan of the “E” like me (you puff) then you may want to avoid everything, even the extra life “P” as it will reduce the bat to normal again. As I say, you shouldn’t have much trouble with this level and if you are farming for scores then you should be over 20,000 by the end of the level, which is nice.

And then it’s Level 2. See that tempting red block I spoke of? You get the ball through there it will bounce around for ages wreaking havoc as it goes. Get ready for it to speed up something rotten though as it comes back. All in all too much for me to handle.

Ok, this is level 3 – and to be honest I only really wanted to show you this level. What a complete shit this level is. Why? Well, you see those GOLD blocks? They can’t be broken. Do what you like to ‘em, they ain’t moving. Which leaves a small opening to the right with which to try and get the ball through. Which I simply CAN’T. FUCKING. DO.

The problem is that not only are the gold blocks really close, they also ping the ball off at a great speed from the word go. Many a time did I lose a life straight away after one bounce. ONE bounce. So embarrassing. The few occasions that I did get the ball to travel up the passage (leave it) it tended to bounce straight back out again at three times the speed it went in. For sucks sake.

Ok, I feel better now I have shown you that.

Here are the first 18 scores:

18,320
28,150
40,300
28,250
33,770
34,720
32,150
27,180
27,030
54,640
36,150
36,490
48,490
41,590
29,620 (cock it)
31,150
31,100
46,110

As you can see, that’s pretty bloody consistent that is. A few times I somehow got past level 3 and onto level 4, which was actually much easier, albeit very fast – but apart from those I think It’s clear that 100,000 is out of my grasp. A bloody shame, as I reckon despite all of the tomfoolery I am quite good at this game – it’s just a shame that I find a few of the levels so troublesome.

You see, that’s what I thought.

Yet, and I shit you not, I played one more time as I was writing this – purely to remind myself what the enemies on the first level looked like (spinning blue triangle things in case you weren’t paying attention) and I had an absolute stormer. I didn’t do anything differently and level 3 was made all the easier with a very handily placed “D” bonus that turned my single ball into 3 right slap bang in the middle of the passage, but still.

Score: 76,370

Ok – it wasn’t the fabled 100,000 target, but it was enough of an improvement to suggest that the state of play isn’t as desperate as it seemed before that last go. Ok, it’s nowhere near the million plus record scores, but it would certainly be respectable - I reckon 100,000 is well within my reach now, so I will continue playing for sure.

Just not at the moment though eh? I did just play it 19 times after all.

Yup, you guessed it chaps – been working like a dog again – so no update for a week or so.

Crunch time is over now, so normal service will be resumed, honest. While the purpose of this quest has stayed the same, I have suprised myself with how much I actually want to write about each game. I was fully anticipating each game to get no more than a couple of paragraphs when I began all of this, but I’m really glad that it has evolved into something a lot “meatier” and hopefully anyone who reads my babbling agrees.

So, what I don’t want to do is rush entries out just for the sake of there being an update – I think that’s what I’m trying to say in all of this – so please do be patient if there is a delay between updates. I WILL aim to update roughly every other day however, so this isn’t a fob off or anything (oh!)

Anyway, the next game is nearly here so hold on to your hats!