Game Reviews

Breakfinity

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iOS
| Breakfinity
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Breakfinity
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iOS
| Breakfinity

One of my enduring memories of the first home computer my family owned involves copying code out of a library book in order to create a Breakout clone.

I felt like a wizard, tapping in enchanted runes and hieroglyphs to make squares and bats appear on the tiny television the computer was hooked up to.

But that was more than 20 years ago, and while the finished game was playable, it wasn't exactly fun. The same could said of Breakfinity.

It's a retro-looking Breakout clone with a slight endless-runner twist that sees you scrolling up the screen, clearing a path through bricks as you go.

But it never manages to shake away the decades-old template it's built around, and the added ideas never really kick in hard enough to make you feel like you're playing anything other than another Breakout clone.

Not exactly broken

Each playthrough sees you bouncing a ball into strips of blocks. You don't need to smash all the blocks to progress -you just need to batter a hole through them that lets your ball disappear at the top of the screen.

You'll shuttle forward and then and have to hit your way through another stretch of blocks. Except this time your ball will be moving a little faster.

Repeat until you miss a ball with your bat. Then you've got the choice to start again, buy a ball with the currency you earn from smashing tougher blocks, or watch an advert to get a free ball.

It's a game of high score chasing and testing your own skills, but while the level shifts make things a bit more interesting, it's really just another way of avoiding a loading screen.

Down and out

The presentation is flat and not very interesting, and while there's some variety as you move through the game, it's never enough to really keep you involved.

There are the usual power-ups, from lasers to bat-extenders, and they do exactly what you'd expect them to.

And that's Breakfinity in a nutshell. It's everything you'd expect from a slightly tweaked Breakout, and not one iota more.

Breakfinity

It's reasonably well put together, but Breakfinity isn't anything more than another copy of a very old game
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.