Reviews

I had this when I was in posession of a +3 with a nice quick floppy drive on it.This game came with it on a compilation of games on disk.Went through a phase of practically playing it everyday for a good few months :o)
I was rather into the recreational side of things at the time.Me and a /friend a 14inch colour telly etc..Anyway the game was very good like the way you could follow the ball as it never went slower than the ball moved.It seemed fair.It also was very polished(The intro got a bit annoying tho, everytime you started a new game).The power ups were a great feature and this is probably the best way a game like this can be done for the Spectrum.Maybe I woulda added more powerups and made that 3rd level less annoying :o).Also the other games like Batty and Arkananoid2 was mono and with my eyesight no good for me.I tried Krakout but wasnt taken with it.I liked Poing on the Amiga though and that was from the same angle as Krakout.
Anyway I finished this game and was very satisfied.
A+ from me.

Arkanoid is a favourite computer game of mine on any platform.

The Spectrum version is no exception to this rule.

5 out of 5.

A classic in spite of its simplicity, or maybe because of it . ;-)

Great conversion of the most famous of the breakout clones, plays just like the arcade game and shares every goodness on offer. I'll go on record and I say that Batty is my favourite Breakout game on the Speccy (well largely because I owned it) but this is still Breakout at its very best on the Spectrum.

1987 Imagine Software (UK)
by Mike Lamb, Ronny Fowles and Mark Jones

Breakout games were never my cup of tea, well maybe in the beggining, when they were a novelty, but I must state that Arkanoid is in my opinion the best there is in the spectrum. From graphics to sound, to gameplay, variety in levels, power-ups etc, you get it all with top notch quality. Batty is alright but Arkanoid is the real McCoy.

I always thought that Arkanoid felt dated , i remember the first time i played it and i was perplexed how such a simple game was doing the rounds almost ten years after breakout on the atari and a good five years after the free game on horizons - thru the wall.

It is of course far better than either of those titles , with far superior graphics , power ups , different levels and a daft storyline to boot !

The only problem was that it was squashed (no pun intended) by the vastly superior Batty which was given away around the same time as a free gift on the cover of Your Sinclair.

Overall - totally unoriginal , but a decent version of the classic breakout.

I think Ocean just got obsessed with converting any arcade machine they could to home computers.

And i also think crash got it spot on !

I think Arkanoid was my first full priced game and its one I played right through until my specy retired to the atic to make way for my Sega Mega Drive. This is a better port of the arcade classic than other systems got. Theres a lot of little nuances in the gameplay that set this apart and it looks great too. Love it!

How exactly do you annoy an ark? But I digress.
So then Arkanoid is a Breakout clone and not a very good one at that. If you really must play Breakout, give Batty or Krakout a try instead.

I'm usually terrible at Breakout games but for some reason Arkanoid always holds a certain amount of charm in my life, especially on the Spectrum

It could be pretty colours, it could have been the powerups, which is the norm in most Breakout games but growing up I was obviously oblivious to that, so it could have been that. I just always found Arkanoid pleasurable and quite addictive, something I personally don't find in a lot of Breakout games. It just plays really well. Breakout games can be hit or miss with me because they can be unpredictable, but Arkanoid for me is a big hit.

So without question this is one of the better Breakout games anywhere.

My review is based entirely on a player's perspective.
Graphics are great and the arcade machine has been replicated as faithfully as one can expect on the Spectrum.
But almost all breakout games suffer from one thing: the player is hamstrung by the controls.
There is simply no way to replace a trackball or a paddle controller for games like this.
On my Atari 2600 there are some maddening addictive games of the breakout genre and they surely do not rely on fancy effects. It's the paddles which make the game work for the player.
Circus Atari e.g. would be unplayable without them.

Maybe a set of 5 hotkeys to operate with your other hand would come in handy to "teleport" your bat to 1 of 5 fixed spots along the bottom of the screen. This would emulate the control of a paddle to some extent...

Hooray! A conversion that Ocean didn't completely fuck up, Although technically it was Imagine, but they were pretty much the same thing by this time!

Arkanoid is a conversion of Taito's 1987 Breakout Clone. It's basically Breakout with power-ups, enemies, and end of game boss, and a rather stupid clichéd story to boot. The Vaus Scrambled from the mothership Arkanoid, before it was destroyed, dimension wibble! Blah! Blah! Blah!

I actually prefer playing the Speccy version of Arkanoid over the arcade version. The default controls are awful and keys are not re-definable, fortunately you can use Sinclair, or a Kempston if you have one plugged in. Or at least you can if you're playing on a real Speccy anyway, with emulation there's several control solutions available which negate programmers, or developers love of awful key layouts.

This games choice is quite awful though V, and B for left and right ergh! I can understand perhaps the need or want for a more central point on the keyboard, given the nature of the game, but it just made me uncomfortable. I remember how much my left hand hurt playing this back in the day on a plastic keyed 48k+.

Anyway the game....Even though there appears to be a total lack of any kind of options screen the game is none the less presented quite nicely, with stills of the intro minus the Vaus actually Scrambling from the Arkanoid, and the Arkanoid actually being destroyed.

Graphics are quite simple, and colourful, enemies look quite good, and are animated quite well.

The in-game sounds are quite minimal but there's a nice variety of beeps, and pips, and buzzes, that fit the action quite nicely. The Paddle...Sorry Vaus moves at a fair pace, and thankfully never feels too slow to catch up with the ball once it starts to blur the edges of time with it's speed. It does take a little bit of getting used to as the game does try to speed the paddle or slow the paddle depending on the balls position.

I always got a little annoyed with how easily the ball can drop through the sides of the Vaus when it looks like you blatantly hit it though. After all these years though I've noticed the arcade kind of has the same problem, so I can't really fault the Speccy version for that, if anything as annoying as it is maybe it should be praised for accuracy?....But probably not!

As per usual I don't normally review direct Arcade Conversions, but as I mentioned above I think I actually enjoy the Speccy version more. That's a good enough reason for me to do so.

It's a simple game, but it's fun, and addictive.

'The era and time of this story is unknown'...

Great conversion of the Taito arcade classic. One of those Spectrum versions as good as the original game. A plot about spaceships and aliens give way to an addictive game with 33 levels, in which you control a craft that hits a ball in order to break down a wall, destroying bricks, some of them can give you capsules with extra powers.

An appropriate level of difficulty, good graphics and movement and a catchy tune complete a very good game.

Arkanoid should in essence be an easy conversion to make, surely they couldn't mess this one up? Well thank God Ocean delivered with it. This is a sublime conversion. Every bit as good as the original and probably more. Excellent.

Great, fine conversion of the Taito mega classic. In fact, the Best Ballbreaker Spectrum could offer. Perfect for a short try, waiting for bus or whatever

Breakout perfection

classic arcade that could not miss the Spectrum catalog. It is very well achieved and survives very well even today

...capable of competing with nowadays equivalent clones, so it's time tested to the extreme .
 ... Darwinian doctrine in its purest state !!