New Software To Be Reviewed Review

Paranoid was the first arkanoid that I used to play when I was a kid in the 80s. Since then, there have been many variations, nothing too different from the original concept. Ricochet Infinity from Reflexive Entertainment just made my day by being the most imaginative breakout game I've played in recent times!

What I loved most has nothing to do with the gameplay! It's a small long-eared green alien creature that sits at the bottom left of your screen and watches the ion sphere (or the ball!) bounce back and forth between your spaceship (or the paddle!) and the bricks. It does flips when you successfully complete a level.

There is no time limit that I found within which to complete a level. There are gold and silver rings to be collected, the gold helps you advance in the ranks, and the silver ones gives you extra points. There is an immense variety of bricks, some hide power-ups, and some have metal covers which take longer to break. There are other pieces too, that are locked until you hit them with a charge-enhanced ion sphere. Within the first few levels, you will also discover the teleporters, which will take the ball from the one side of the screen and spit out in the other side.

An amazingly novel concept is that of "recalling" the ball. This time, you have can call back the ball by keeping the right mouse button pressed. And it doesn't simply return to the spaceship in a linear route, it makes a parabolic trajectory as it turns around. Very realistic physics!

The bricks make up different interesting shapes throughout the game, including a bunny popping out of a magician's hat, a moon truck or even a creepy spider! Some brick sections will keep moving to add animation the design. Numerous designs will not let you get bored with the mindless task of breaking the bricks. The backgrounds are also tremendously vivid. In some, asteroids float around, and others tropic fish swim at the bottom of the sea.

Power-ups are numerous! Some will let you shoot lasers or stinger heat-seeking missiles from the spaceship, and some will convert your ion sphere into a laser-shooting, flake-throwing, lightning-yielding or acid-spitting monster! The safety bumper will save your ion sphere once if you drop it. You won't tire of juggling more than one sphere, since you can have upto six-way splits. A different power-up even allows the broken bricks to drop small balls, which will convert to real spheres when they touch the spaceship. Acid balls will eat away at the metal-covered bricks in no time, and fire balls will slash through the bricks. There's even one level where you can touch two special items to attach a fireball on a string with your sphere, and left-clicking will release the extra ball which will slash right through the bricks. And of course, as in any other arkanoid game, there is the ball-catcher! The physics of ball-catching is also tremendously realistic, as you will see how the ball glues on to the paddle. Unlike other arkanoid games, you have the ability to keep your older power-ups when you get the new one.

Invading aliens will show up on the screen from time to time. They'll contaminate your bricks and make them more resistant to the ion sphere. Sometimes they'll even drop bombs on your ship. Destroying the aliens is as easy as hitting them with a (dodge)ball! In some levels, you will be helped by laser guns sitting on each side of the screen, which will shoot incessantly towards the ball, in the process hitting and destroying nearby bricks.

Oh, and I totally forgot how you can change ships! You can have a big collection of spaceships, each of which will have special abilities and these can be unlocked when you pick the ship special bonus. When picking the power-ups, you have to be mindful of the red ones, since these can be detrimental. You don't want your spaceship deflector or paddle to shrink!

Number of ion spheres are limited, unless you win bonuses to increase that. When you've lost all the spheres, you're forced to replay the entire level. All the more fun!

There are more levels than you can imagine, and user-created levels can be downloaded directly from the game-makers' website. The level editor provides an easy way to build your own designs. The trophy room keeps all the trophies you earn during the madness on different planets.

The music is at best arcade type, with little variation and gets boring in no time. But the sound effects associated with the gameplay are various and adds vibrance to the breaking-out atmosphere. Graphics is two-dimensional, but they did their best to give a 3D feeling.

You might think this can get repetitive. But with all the attention to put on the ball, its realistic movement physics, and innumerable levels, I think this one will last for days.

For the amazing $4.99 deal from Amazon, you won't regret buying this arakanoid gem!