Pandora Bricks
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| Pandora Bricks

Back in the old days, when men were men and flying machines were the devil's talk, games generally involved blobs of various shapes hitting other blobs. Of course, sometimes you had to avoid hitting the blobs rather than running towards them.

Pandora Bricks is an update of one of these simple classics. You control a paddle and have to knock a ball into a collection of bricks in the middle of the screen. The major difference between this game and every other Breakout clone released in the last 30 years is that you get to control four paddles, or, to be more accurate, two pairs of paddles, instead of the usual one.

This may sound like a little too much to handle, but when you are controlling one set of the paddles, the other pair is controlled by the computer meaning that you aren't always frantically shifting between the two. Of course, the computer isn't too good; rather, it just does the bare minimum to stop the ball from flying off the edge of the screen into oblivion. Very occasionally, the AI controlled partner will miss the ball completely, but this is a rare enough occurence for you to be able to rely on your autopilot buddy for the most part.

However, in this tampering with the traditional arcade formula of the old-school block-buster, some of elements have been lost. Firstly, the gameplay isn't exactly fast and furious. The paddles glide about like greased pigs, movement more slidey than sharp, and the challenge is more about getting the paddle to the ball in time rather than an all-out game of reflexes.

This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but since there's a paddle on each edge of the screen on most levels (a few levels only have two paddles) there is generally not a huge gap between the little blocks you're trying to bash and the paddles themseves. The result is that while the ball doesn't move that quickly, you'll have to preempt the ball's moves if you don't want to watch your life count drain away quickly. Unfortunately, this gets frustrating on many of the game's levels, especially when the level design is often less than inspiring.

The overall look is more appealing. The three different game backgrounds pulsate, fully animated in a pleasingly organic fashion, helping to support a bizarre story that concerns all sorts of alien overlords and the like.

There are some decent Arkanoid-style boss fights too that make for pleasingly different interludes. And as you would expect, there are the usual host of power-ups to be had, from bat extenders to the power ball that smashes through the bricks with ease.

However, while Pandora Bricks initially looks like a fairly attractive package, thanks to its 30 levels and three boss characters, the slightly faulty and occasionally frustrating gameplay brings things down a few notches. This is an interesting take on the Breakout genre that's worth a look for fans, but if you're going for your first mobile game of this type, there are tastier fish in the chip shop, like Taito's mobile rendition of arcade classic Arkanoid.

Pandora Bricks

An interesting take on Breakout, though some basics building blocks have been lost in the push for innovation
Score