Breakout (Atari 2600)

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Description

In Breakout, there is a wall of bricks along the top of the screen and your goal is to destroy the entire wall one brick at a time! To do this, you control a paddle at the bottom of the screen which is used to reflect a bouncing ball into the bricks. When the ball hits a brick, it will destroy it. You start with five balls, and the game ends when all five fall off the bottom of the screen. Also included are several game variations, including breakthru (the ball will go straight through bricks instead of bouncing back), timed breakout (you have a time limit to gain as many points as you can), and invisible breakout (the bricks are only visible for a short while after one of them is hit). Other variations allow you to catch the ball or control the direction of the ball.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "T.T. Block" -- Taito Japanese release (cocktail table)
• "Table Scratch" -- Universal Japanese cocktail cabinet release
• "Super Breakout: Classic Play/All New Way!" -- Windows tag-lined title
• "Super Block" -- Taito Japanese release (cabinet)
• "Scratch!" -- Universal Japanese standing cabinet release
• "Crash" -- Video Games GmbH German release
• "Break Out" -- MSX in-game title
• "Breakaway IV" -- Sears Tele-Games release

Part of the Following Groups

• Breakout series
• Breakout variants
• Gaming Service: Game Room

User Reviews

First great one player game	eratik (123)
Pong has evolved! Again!	RobinHud (73)
Just your basic Arkanoid...	VortexS130 (105)

Critic Reviews

Woodgrain Wonderland	Oct 14, 2016	A-	91
Retro Game Reviews	Apr 27, 2016		90
Atari HQ	2000	9 out of 10	90
Game Freaks 365	2002	8 out of 10	80
The Video Game Critic	Feb 14, 2004	C-	42
Le Geek	2012	2 out of 5	40
The Good Old Days (Staff Reviews only)	Jan 03, 2015	2 out of 6	33
Creative Computing	Jul, 1978	Unscored	Unscored

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
RIP Steve Bristow!	1	Pseudo_Intellectual (63863) Feb 25, 2015

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Breakout appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Apple

The participation of Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the development of the original arcade version of this game (following a design by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell) may explain why some version of it (e.g. BRICK OUT) is always one of the first games available for play on any Apple platform.

Book

The Atari 2600 version of this game was the primary subject of one of the earliest popular books concerning video games, David Sudnow's 1979 Pilgrim in the Microworld, an account of his obsessive descent into its world of balls and bricks.

Related Web Sites

• Wikipedia: Breakout (Information about Breakout at Wikipedia)