Rock, Paper, Shotgun

If there’s an episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” focussing on games, you can expect to see a crying Peggle (in this scenario portrayed by actor James Ellis, if you can’t get your head around the concept of a game weeping on camera) wailing over black and white screenshots of Breakout, talking about how it never knew where it came from. There there, Peggle, we have just the thing to help you understand. Bashi Blocks is Breakout with a bit more oomph, and it’s now free.
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Reader Michael Cook sends word of Pixel Breakout, a teeny-tiny flash game which is both exactly what you’d expect and pleasantly surprising. For the 60 or so seconds it takes you to complete it, you’re pretty well rewarded. And yet now I am angry, because playing it’s reminded me of an old, freeware, overwhelmingly psychedelic Asteroids clone where everything you shot or touched exploded in a shower of pixels and tinny noise. I think it began with an A. Is that ringing any bells for anyone? It definitely deserves a post of its own.

EDIT: Spheres of Chaos! That was it. And I see Alec “Greasy Cheetah” Meer wrote about it a whopping three years ago, right here.

A very silly, very Friday diversion that I’m mighty tempted to have another crack at when I return home blind-drunk from a chum’s stag do later tonight, solely for malcoordinated hilarity’s sake. It’s Pong. It’s Breakout. It’s Pong and Breakout, both controlled by one player – that’ll be you, then – at the same time. Yeeargh.
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