Super Breakout

CX5203. Rarity 1 common. North America NTSC. Trak-Ball or joystick controllers. 1 player, 2 players, 3 players, or 4 players alternating (1 or 2 players simultaneous). Uses the extra ports on 4 port machines for 3 or 4 players.
Maneuver the paddle at the bottom of the screen to keep the bouncing ball in the play field. You score points for every brick the ball hits. The ball will bounce at different angles depending on where it strikes the paddle. This version of the game offers improvements over the original. 'Breakout mode' is identical but 'Progressive mode' slowly scrolls the bricks toward the player as the ball picks up speed. 'Double Breakout' mode gives each player two synchronized paddles and two balls. 'Cavity mode' traps two balls inside the wall of bricks that can be freed into the play field. The goal of every variation is to eliminate all the bricks. As with other versions, the ball will speedup after striking a brick in the 7 row and your paddle will become smaller after the ball hits the far boundary of the play field. There is no easy mode (like other versions). You will also get a rating of your play at the end of each game.

Control:
If you have a good joystick then control is excellent. You can move the paddle to any point on the screen as fast as you can move your hand. Position of the stick equals position on the screen. However, if your joystick is bad, this game will suffer more than any other. You paddle my not go all the way to each edge of the play field, you might find that only a narrow range of the stick movement applies to the paddle, and/or your paddle may jitter terribly. A trak-ball controller will fix most these issues. A disadvantage of the trak-ball being that you must guestimate the spin needed to move from one point to another thus more expertise is necessary. A homemade paddle controller is also an option to replace the joystick.

Scoring:
There are 8 rows of bricks that are 14 bricks wide. Except for progressive mode which scrolls sets of 4 rows at the player with gaps between each set. Gold=1, red=3, blue=5, and green=7. When two balls are in play, bricks are worth double points. Trippe points for three balls in play. A score under 100 gets you an "Oops" rating. Scores up to 200 are rated "Average", above 300 are "Good", and there are additional ratings for higher scores than 400.

(Zerothis) - # 2008-10-07 02:46:12

hardware: Trackball,

display: raster

port of
Super Breakout (Arcade)

version of
Battle Zone / Super Breakout (GB)
Super Breakout (Atari ST)
Super Breakout (Atari 2600)
Super Breakout (VIC-20)
Super Breakout (Atari 400/800)
Super Breakout! (GBC)