Breakout Beyond

I had high hopes for this game, but unfortunately Breakout Beyond falls flat on almost every front. The horizontal setup, although a neat idea on paper, doesn't work with the brick-breaker concept very well. In almost every level, the design suffers from both the bricks being either too far away or too close. The scrolling is confusing: It mostly happens during times when a multiball dashes through a level on its own which either ends in you losing all balls at once (due to chaos and indiscernible elements on the screen) or you get a level clear without doing anything for 20 seconds. The ball physics also don't make much sense, especially when this random gravity change happens every other minute. The overall game feel is off: The paddle doesn't have any tangible weight to it and moving it around isn't fun, same goes for the ball. I had better aim and control while playing with the mouse, but even then it's almost impossible to not make any mistakes without using the slow-down feature. Speaking of: You are almost incentivized to basically use the slow-down all the time. The game tells you that your score suffers if you use it (too much), but the score/multiplier doesn't feel important in the first place. The whole feature palette is barebones: Aside from speed-up, slow-down, and brick power-ups, there seems to be nothing else going on. Granted, I haven't played for very long, so I might have missed something, but it doesn't seem to be the case. The presentation is boring and lacks a directorial vision. Although the color palette is cool, there are no stunning visual features, no neat details, no characters, no lore, no nothing. Again, I only played the first ten levels or so, but in any case: This is a very hard sell for around 15 Euro. If you are looking for better Breakout games or Breakout-likes here on Steam, try Hot Pink, Wizorb, Strikey Sisters or Breakout: Recharged.

I enjoyed the original Pong and Breakout games. This game appears to be a loosely based on both Pong and Breakout; fused together into an awesome experience. You are simply charged with the responsibility to to conquer the blocks by any means necessary and prevent the projectile ball from getting/dropping behind you. It's quite the challenging as the ball starts to move faster and faster while your paddle get's smaller and smaller. Graphics: Colorful and pleasant on the eyes. There is always something to catch your eye and trick you in not moving your paddle in time. It reminds me of Jeff Minter games... Sound/Music: Funactional but by no means outstanding. Still, it serves it's purpose and is changes with the level played. I highly recommend this game if you want to take a break and let your more relaxed side to play. Breakout Beyond is super fun.

Was skeptical when I first saw this because of hot it plays horizontally instead of vertically like the original did. I've played the first 10 levels at this point and while I'm still giving it a chance, the bad outweighs the good, namely the controls. Even with adjustable sensitivity it's almost impossible to find a "just right" with a controller and don't even bother with a mouse because it won't be fast enough and you need a keyboard too. The orientation does take some getting used to, would be better if there was an option to rotate the screen especially because this would be perfect for TATE monitor setups (ask a bullet hell veteran if you don't know about that). Also it's very difficult right from the start. It looks cool and the price is reasonable, just anticipate a very steep learning curve and frustrating controls. I can't recommend it just yet.

Breakout Beyond is an interesting reimagination of the classic Breakout arcade game on its side with a distracting neon art style and awkward gameplay. At first you can only play the story or Voyage mode. To unlock the more arcade like endless mode with a leaderboard, the Infinite mode, you have to grind your way through a barrage of levels. You can skip 3 levels at a time fortunately, but you have to play them all for the achievements and to unlock Retro mode (I think). The Infinite mode is quite disappointing though because it doesn't feature any of the powerups from the story mode you got familiar with. Just extra lives. The ball speed ramps up really quickly and with the horizontal layout, ball spin and distracting visual effects you're kind of forced to play the game in slowmo when the ball is heading towards you. Slowmo costs points (and combos) but it pays to keep your ball alive. The Voyage mode is actually more fun than the Infinite mode. Each level shows your top score and there's a leaderboard for the total score. The levels are short with a variety of power ups some of which you can choose before you start. Being able to play with a mouse in tate mode would help with the difficulty and enjoyment of the game. You can already play in tate with a spinner set to the y-axis. (Wacom) pens are not supported unfortunately. Having to rotate your screen to play the game properly can a bit of a pain though. Fortunately you can also rotate your Windows without rotating your screen for tate with black bars on the side. The game does offer a challenging game to (hardcore) fans of brick breakers but I'm not sure I'd recommend this game to anyone else. It's just not much fun atm playing sideways. Brick breakers can work fine sideways but that may require simpler game mechanics. Maybe the upcoming updates will help. The game would benefit from an endless mode with power ups. Imho Infinite mode and Retro mode should be available from the start. Infinite mode: https://youtu.be/sbk5i20WKQk Edit: Latest update introduced an option to choose the axis of the mouse/spinner used for control of the paddle and an option for the orientation of the UI. So now tate mode is possible. With some trickery vertical mode without rotating your screen is still possible.

[h1]65 / 100[/h1] [i]This different take on the old breakout formula didn't quite land for me. Horizontal layout aside, even after dialing in the sensitivity, control of the bat-to-ball feels too slippery to reliably and precisely direct the ball where you want. Neon aesthetic / flashing effects looks great, but also make it harder to track the ball. CRT/filter effects can't be turned off. Some challenging and enjoyable levels - 72 on offer in Voyage mode took me around 4-5hrs to complete. Despite some frustrations and my brain never really adjusting sideways it was still a fun play through, and a refreshing take on the genre.[/i] ✔️ Timers, constantly progressing play fields, and high speed can make this a respectable challenge. ✔️ Power-ups (once unlocked) offer various tactical advantages to breakout and maximise scores. ✔️ Modern but Classic; the visuals are beautiful, complemented by solid retro sound effects. ✔️ Easter Egg - 1976 mode ツ ❌ Bat acceleration/sensitivity feels off - very hard to precisely angle the ball. ❌ Limited replayability - not many modes or other challenges once clocked. ❌ Colour selections along with the neon-tastic effects make it hard to track ball at times. ❌ Infinite/Endless mode not available till you have beaten the game and also has no power-ups. [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/6857016/][u]True Blue Reviews[/u][/url]

I played it on the Steam Deck and I think the horizontal layout of the game really shines there, great experience overall. After a couple of levels I changed the sensitivity to 3 and remapped the focus button to the left trigger, this improved the gameplay a lot. There is not much to say about the game itself: it's exactly what you would expect from the screenshots and trailer. If you like what you see there, you will like the ~70 levels of the game.

It was the turn of the pleistocene when I last played breakout - in the form of Arkanoid on the Amiga - and let me tell you my skills have massively... not improved at all. Recommended for the ironclad gall of releasing an official Atari Breakout that runs sideways. Not a problem, I'd be useless at it either way, but man, that took some nerts!

Huge step backwards from Breakout Recharged. At least most of the issues have been fixed, now.

Ultra stressful not what I wanted. The paddle isn't very solid and quite often the ball just fazes through

One of the best games ive played in a while. Its an instant classic for me.