DX-Ball

The Good
To be honest, the PC is horribly lacking in good arcade games. There are very few genuinely good breakout clones on the PC, most notably Arkanoid (and its sequel) and Krypton Egg. It doesn't even come close to the wealth of arcade games available on the Commodore 64 or my personal favorite, the Amiga. Luckily it can emulate most of these computers to an extent great enough that you can experience those great games again. But I'm digressing.

DX-Ball is undoubtedly one of the better breakout clones ever made for the PC. It is relatively new, but tries very hard to stay oldskool and "Amiga"-esque with smooth animations and continuous, smooth gameplay. It does so quite well really; DX-Ball features pretty good graphics and manages to run just fine with an MP3 in the background on my old P166.

With decent level design at worst and non-stop gaming, DX-Ball manages to remain quite addictive to the point that my dad still plays it night by night. It's also quite challenging at the higher levels; though I haven't really bothered playing it too much, I still found reaching my 59,000 points highscore quite challenging to attain, which is definitely good. My dad's still struggling to get there :-)

The Bad
While the game is smooth and the graphics are decent, they are still extremely bland, as the game has absolutely no background. This might have been acceptible in the days of Arkanoid, but the lack of background really hampers the game's visual appeal.

Speaking of which, DX-Ball's biggest problem is complete lack of dynamic (err, is that even a noun?) The game becomes frustrating for the simple reason that NOTHING HAPPENS. You just go on hitting blocks and more blocks to no end, and it gets annoying after a while. There are no 'monsters' (a la Arkanoid), no firey blocks or anything interesting as such, which is why I never played this game to its full length.

The other major problem with the game is complete lack of proper sound. Now it appears that you actually can turn on background MIDI music, but I found this out LONG after I played it (don't ask why), but regardless the sound effects are extremely lacking and monotonous.

The Bottom Line
All in all one of the better breakout clones of the '90s... too bad it gets dull after a while.