Alien Soccer

The Good
Alien Soccer is Rabbit’s take on the Atari game Breakout, and it is interesting. The game takes on the view of a stadium where the ball is launched from the right side of the screen. You have to keep an eye on this ball because it ricochets off the barriers (and any aliens that get in the way) and eventually reaches your side. You must use your bat to ricochet the ball back into the center or you lose a life.

The graphics and sound are okay. I like how the barriers in the center of the screen are not just one color. The aliens look similar to the ones from Space Invaders, and the sound effects are Invaders quality as well. There is a nice siren sound when the game ends. Before the start of the game, you are asked to enter your difficulty, from one (easy) to five (hard). Good luck trying to play the game on difficulty five.

The game is an example of a “score attack”, in which you aim to beat your previous score without running out of lives. One thing that I like about this game is the higher your score, the more difficult it will be to score attack. As it increases, blue aliens appear and remain stationary on screen, which means that you will find the ball on your side every five seconds, therefore making your job a little bit harder.

Alien Soccer makes use of all three of the VIC’s input devices – keyboard, joystick, and paddles. It is neat that Rabbit has catered for users who don’t have either a joystick or paddle; and it is something that the company didn’t offer in their previous titles. In my opinion, using the paddle is far more easier than the other two.

The Bad
How did the author manage to add vertical lines in the VIC’s border? They look downright horrible.

The Bottom Line
Alien Soccer is an unusual take on Breakout. Instead of the ball hitting bricks on the other side, there are barriers in the center, and the more you survive in the game, the more aliens that will appear, and these aliens will make your job difficult. Since there is no official port of Breakout for any home computer, this game for the VIC-20 will probably suffice.