Breakin' out in style (c. 2004)
BreakQuest comes to us from the PC, but does this older game have much relevance anymore?
Published: October 21, 2009
Many familiar old school genres have been revived in recent years, all with varying levels of success. Super Stardust HD made Asteroids look cool again, while Bionic Commando: Rearmed has given us hope for hardcore side scrolling action. Brick breaking, however, has remained rather complacent in its presentation, and appears more often than not with every generation of iPod that is released. But before Shatter was released on the PS3 this year, BreakQuest was brought to PC. Now, this indie game is a PSP mini.
However, once you get passed the initial loading screen for the minis (which is pretty slick), you will notice that this is, unabashedly, a PC game squeezed onto a PSP screen. From the microscopic text to the embarrassingly small textures and object detailing, BreakQuest did little to cater to the portable user. This might not seem like a huge deal, but the inability to navigate menus or even understand what you are looking at on screen can be a major issue for those of us without super vision. As much as I’d like to think this was a design problem of enhancing textures, it was more likely an oversight on the part of the developer.
Fitting perfectly within the confines of the mini design requirements, BreakQuest can be a simple game to pick up and play. This, of course, is assuming that you have already sunk plenty of hours into it to unlock all 100 levels. While most of these levels are mundane, they do have a few interesting ones. Early on, you come across a Space Invaders level, which has you dodging enemy fire while launching your ball at them to clear the board. I would have loved to see more of those levels, because throwbacks to classic games (or anything with some personality) would have been a vast improvement from the actual end result.
For the many things BreakQuest does poorly, it brings a few nice features along. Aside from the throwback levels, the game includes several physics-based stages that are uniquely affected by your actions. On top of that, there is an array of weapon power-ups to use, although most of them feel and act the same way.
Not much can be said about BreakQuest, other than its lack of originality. The biggest disappointment about the game is that it has a really well written software guide that throws out some sort of premise for this game. There could have been a story that included the same artwork from the manual, but not even that was included. Of all the things that could have been done to make BreakQuest an exciting and original brick-breaker for the PSP, none of them occurred.
However, once you get passed the initial loading screen for the minis (which is pretty slick), you will notice that this is, unabashedly, a PC game squeezed onto a PSP screen. From the microscopic text to the embarrassingly small textures and object detailing, BreakQuest did little to cater to the portable user. This might not seem like a huge deal, but the inability to navigate menus or even understand what you are looking at on screen can be a major issue for those of us without super vision. As much as I’d like to think this was a design problem of enhancing textures, it was more likely an oversight on the part of the developer.
Fitting perfectly within the confines of the mini design requirements, BreakQuest can be a simple game to pick up and play. This, of course, is assuming that you have already sunk plenty of hours into it to unlock all 100 levels. While most of these levels are mundane, they do have a few interesting ones. Early on, you come across a Space Invaders level, which has you dodging enemy fire while launching your ball at them to clear the board. I would have loved to see more of those levels, because throwbacks to classic games (or anything with some personality) would have been a vast improvement from the actual end result.
For the many things BreakQuest does poorly, it brings a few nice features along. Aside from the throwback levels, the game includes several physics-based stages that are uniquely affected by your actions. On top of that, there is an array of weapon power-ups to use, although most of them feel and act the same way.
Not much can be said about BreakQuest, other than its lack of originality. The biggest disappointment about the game is that it has a really well written software guide that throws out some sort of premise for this game. There could have been a story that included the same artwork from the manual, but not even that was included. Of all the things that could have been done to make BreakQuest an exciting and original brick-breaker for the PSP, none of them occurred.
