Children of the gigabyte hard drive, be not afraid of our retro trappings. Shun us no longer! We come in peace, bearing gifts of a bygone age. We know our technology may seem ancient to you, Sons and Daughters of the Polygon, but despite having its heyday back in the days when the mammoths roamed the plains listening to WHAM and MC Hammer, we assure you, we were pretty "rad". But we know we have to make an attempt to reach out to you, and that's why we bring you Pixel Basher, an arcade classic updated with new graphics, new upgrades, and new abilities. All it really needs is a highscore screen where you can try to think up profane things to spell with the three letters they give you. (Don't look at me like that, you know you did it too.)
Played with either the mouse or the keyboard, Pixel Basher is, essentially, a Breakout clone with a twist, designed to appeal to your nostalgia, the sneaky buggers. Your goal is to destroy all the blocks on screen by bouncing a ball off the paddle at the bottom of the screen; you need to hit them hard enough for them to break, and some blocks will drop items that can help or hinder you, such as granting you explosive abilities or turning portions of the screen dark. Whatever happens, keep your eye on the ball; you only have a limited number, and if they all fall off screen, it's game over. Fortunately, you've got a cannon on hand which you can fire to help destroy blocks, but it has limited ammunition... at least, at first. You can also pick up cash to spend on upgrades until your paddle is the mightiest of them all!
At only nine levels, the game is short. Like, short-short. But it's a sweet, simple snack from yesteryear wrapped up in shiny new packaging that offers a bite-sized portion of fast-paced fun. And then after you play it, you can put on your leg warmers and load up on hairspray and sample other delights from days gone by, such as Blossom re-runs and lawn darts!... hey, where you goin'? Are you overwhelmed by how awesome my childhood was? Yeah, me too. All the time.
Hm. I find it unplayably hard on keyboard. Let me get back to a mouse before I rate it.
This is a nice game. A slight reinvention of the breakout genre in that the ball responds to more realistic physics rather than just going at a constant speed that gets sped up or slowed down by powerups.
It takes a bit of getting used to since the particles that result from a brick being exploded sometimes get in the way of seeing where the ball is, and responding to the physics is different from normal breakout games.
It's also not that hard of a game, but it was enjoyable.
I really enjoyed playing this game. It was fun game with some twists. I love breakout games. It was too short though, I wish it had more levels. Thanks for all the games that you post here and the reviews given by the professional writers. Thanks for all the good work that you do here Jay.
Good god. Those multiball powerups get ridiculous if you get a bunch of 'em. 32 balls on screen at once. Luckily the game lagged a bit because of sheer ridiculousness. Only lost 3-4 balls in the mess, and only after they were all coming down at once. (My only gripe with the multiball power up is that it takes away all momentum from the balls, thus making them ALL fall down at once.)
If it ran a little more smooth it would be a great game. It seemed too jerky.
Well, that was an easy game to beat. It was mostly just a matter of sitting through the levels as you gradually broke through the giant wall of blocks on each level.
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