Crackout

"Blah."

Crackout is a pong game. Actually, it's much more than just a pong game, I can't play down the immense importance of this game any longer! It's a tale of epic proportions; detailing the mighty struggle between a computer mainframe, desperate to gain control over its own life, and his paddle-shaped oppressor. And stuck in the middle of this odious pair is a ball, the third-party forced to do all the dirty work! Your role as the player is to commandeer the paddle and the ball, and crack through the defense system of this suffering antagonist. It'll take all of the practice you've had moving side-to-side during your life to keep the ball from slipping off the edge of the screen and into oblivion, but somebody has to do it!

Crackout dishes up 80 levels of pong madness, complete with bizarre enemies, powerful pick-ups, and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It's one of the more interesting pong games you're ever likely to come across, with this strange little title preferring to throw something new into the fray, rather than just act satisfied with the whole ''ball hits blocks a lot'' routine. With the ability to warp to an alternate dimension (doubling the amount of playable levels immediately from 40 to 80), and a codeword to be uncovered during your progress, there's more than just the bottom of the screen to worry about.

The game is split into four different zones, each one harbouring a collection of 10 (or 20, if you're getting picky) stages. Your object in each stage isn't just to clear the screen of blocks. You've also got to knock your ball into the farthest corners of the stages, to see if a letter of your codeword isn't playing fugitive. If that isn't enough, there'll usually be a couple of enemies floating around, doing their utmost to provide an annoyance. They might do just that on occasion, but this is overshadowed by the other commodity they provide - nice little pick-ups.

All of the usual customers are accounted for within the collection of pick-ups. You can make your paddle longer, you can get a second ball under your command, you can make your paddle and your ball shoot out block destroying bullets, and the rest of that generic stuff is also in there somewhere. The good thing about Crackout is the sense of necessity they give to their items. There are a good deal of situations that simply cannot be dealt with without the aid of a good rocket or two. With all of these extra circumstances going on around you, Crackout could almost be described as the thinking man's game of pong!

Nah.

As you get towards the later stages of the game, the individual stages are going to take on a rather extreme level of difficulty. The unlimited continues bestowed upon you barely suffice for some of the REALLY tough ones. Many cases see the obstacles placed on the screen outweighing the blocks heavily. You'll spend minutes at a time just bouncing the ball around, aiming for a tiny little opening that will lead you to block-bashing glory. And even then you'll probably meet with one of those TOUGHER blocks (the kind that take 2 or 3 hits to dislodge) and have the ball come right back at you, for another round of patience. The earlier levels may be the simple little things that we've all come to know and love, but these later ones - with their obstacles sending balls flying off at funny angles, and impossible to reach places - can individually take as much effort as the entire first zone.

Your supposed main worries (other than insanity) lie in the form of end-of-zone bosses. Taking up a large percentage of the screen, and launching absolutely useless attacks at you on occasion, these baddies offer nothing more than a distraction from the task at hand. Your job is to find the letters required, and get some idea of the password, and this will probably mean playing through those 40/80 levels more than once (and if you're lame, more than twice!). By the time you've worked out the word and have finished the game, you'll probably be sick and tired of the entire ordeal. It doesn't mean you won't come back to Crackout again down the track, searching again for that challenge you've missed with other poor pong recreations, but it's a game best enjoyed in short stints. Even a parade made by all of the stupid little enemies you've killed, congratulating you for winning the game (offering compliments of ''You're Good!'', ''Good Job!'', and ''Very Good!'') won't have you instantly clamouring for more.

It's unlikely that the graphics or the sound will keep you interested either. You shouldn't go into a pong game expecting anything much in terms of design elements, because you'll always be bitterly disappointed. Crackout offers the standard fare, multicoloured blocks that make musical tones when hit, washed out colours that always seem to act as a symbol for the dull on-screen action, and cute cartoony characters that do nothing but annoy you. As basic as you can get when it comes to both visuals and sound, but it's hardly going to detract from the pong atmosphere Crackout has so deliciously created!

Crackout is a pretty darn tough game to analyze. It's one of the finest pong recreations out there in the world of console gaming, but does that mean that anybody should still bother with it? If you're looking for something a bit different, a bit difficult, or just a bit pongy, then Crackout is the game for you. It does offer moderate amounts of entertainment at times, and is always a nice distraction from the mainstream stuff. I might as well give Crackout a bit of a recommendation, it certainly won't cause anyone too much pain!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/02, Updated 04/02/02