C&VG


Arkanoid: Revenge Of Doh

Publisher: Imagine
Machine: Spectrum 48K/128K

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #79

Arkanoid: Revenge Of Doh

What with all this talk of hostile space forces, hastily-scrambled space fighters and fearful energy weapons, you'd think that Imagine would be ashamed to present yet another Breakout variant. Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of, boys; we all know that original ideas are hard to find, and after all, Akranoid was mucho playable, despite its ancient derivation.

Revenge Of Doh is exactly what you'd expect from a follow-up; it's tougher, has more gimmicks, and is bigger. But basically it's more of the same old formula; move your bat from left to right along the bottom of the screen, bouncing the ball into rows of bricks until you have cleared each psychedelic screen.

This time the weapon capsules which drop from the shattered bricks come two or three at a time, rather than singly. They also feature a wider range of enhancements to your bat. Apart from expanded size, lasers, glue and slow ball,there are some nifty new ones; a nasty bat reducer, a doubler which gives you two bats at a time, and a ball multiplier which seems to fill the screen with wildly bouncing spheres. My favourite new weapon is the "ghost bat", a sort of shadow following you along the screen. More useful are the armour-piercing balls which shoot through anything, and the fireball which creates an enormous explosion.

Arkanoid II: Revenge Of Doh

However, to make life more difficult there are new types of bricks to cope with too. The moving ones, which are particularly annoying, are a bit hard to see against some of the backgrounds - but then, so is the ball. Less irritating are the blocks which reappear a few seconds after you zap them. Another gimmick is that, while there are 66 screens to play, you can choose to some extent which you encounter.

Once each screen is cleared, you can exit either to the right or the left, so if you fail to cope with any screens you can avoid them on subsequent plays. Inevitably, though, you'll end up fighting the alien on the last level, where there are no capsules to help you.

OK, so Revenge Of Doh isn't a new high in originality, but it's good fun and offers some entertaining extras. It has to be said, though, that unless you've mastered Arkanoid, you may find Revenge Of Doh a bit strenuous; it's deliberately designed to make you tear your hair out, and will certainly take many hours of concentration to complete.