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Breakout and Arkanoid style games have endured over the decades, remaining a popular genre to code in the homebrew scene. It's a simple concept, but that's where the magic lies - the player can sit back, chill out and enjoy a non-complex gaming session for as long as they desire.

Wrecking Ball offers everything seen in the aforementioned Arkanoid: you use your paddle to bounce the ball upwards, clearing the level from all the debris/bricks arranged in the play field. There's a variety of power ups that can enhance your paddle's abilities (and some that hinder). Some aliens are hell-bent on preventing the player from clearing the area and progressing to the next level.

The most stand out feature of Wrecking Ball is that it has been programmed in Basic. Yes, that isn't a typo - the game is handling UDG's and running code that it slower to process. That alone deserves applause for such efforts!

The downside is that it is a slightly less responsive game than players would normally expect. For a game that requires agility and reflexes, any latency in movement can be frustrating. This is not to say that the game is sub-standard - far from it, in fact.

It has the graphical lustre, some reasonable sound quality and good level layout, but is it enough to entice someone away from Revenge of Doh?

I was a bit dubious about Wrecking Ball at first as I'd heard it was fully written in BASIC which left me thinking the game would suffer from slowdown. And it sadly does, but it's not so bad that the game is unplayable. Quite the opposite in fact. The gameplay is there and it keeps you entertained, just as any other Arkanoid clone would. I also love the wrecking ball crew back story. Good fun.

Presentation 79%
Nicely put together and has the shine of a professional game.

Graphics 70%
Colourful. Being the type of game it is, it mainly has static tiles.

Sound 75%
Decent enough music and nice sounds - all of which sound very arcade-like.

Addictive Qualities 70%
Good, but may become frustrating with its speeds.

Lastability 71%
Plenty of levels for those who wish to go through them all.

Overall 73%