Reviews

This is an interesting budget breakout clone released in 1987 on the Firebird label. Critically savaged at the time of release which is completely understandable as it arrived on the very beginning of the downward slope of the breakout game bell curve. Also when held up to such greats as Arkanoid of the same year, a casual glance reveals Ricochet to appear as quite a pedestrian affair. However, I would like to undo some of the previous negative press this game has had because as a budget title, the game offers considerable depth not immediately apparent to anyone who gives up on it within fifteen minutes.

Firstly, the game was criticised for the bat moving too slowly so that it can't always catch the ball, but seasoned players will already be routinely one step ahead of the ball position after some hours of play. The fact that there is effectively a shield which can take several hits running right across the bottom of the screen means you can deliberately tactically allow the ball to miss the bat on a small number of occasions each level in order to get a more useful power up or even a final brick. Also, the fact that the game starts in a multiball mode is also quite a unique idea as is the power up system giving the skilled player effective control of how many balls are in play a great deal of the time.

The game also allows vertical bat movement which adds another interesting dimension. Again the game was criticised back in the day as moving the bat upwards often causes the player to lose lives. However, in some later levels, moving the bat upwards can allow the user to seal off and trap the ball in the upper part of the screen - often effectively completing a level like this. Again, you can work out various strategies to become better at this game over time. e.g. reduce the number of balls in play to just one as quickly as possible, followed by getting "barrier" power ups which eventually block off the bottom of the screen. Finally you can add "double bat" and then add more balls when the whole lower screen is sealed off. I don't know many other breakout clones where you can think like this.

Finally, the variety of levels is good with some now dated eighties references e.g. to Maggie Thatcher etc.. I just don't know how many levels there are because although I have got quite far in the game on several occasions I have still to master it. So I award a middling score, balancing out the fact that it is a good game if you persist with it for a few hours, but if picked up for mere minutes it seems a poor companion to the faster and graphically superior games of this genre. Also check out the intro music - bizarre yet unique. There's also an intro scroller which should be read if you want to time-warp back to the eighties.

This game like many other breakout clones uses the "floating bus" to synchronise sprite drawing with the raster display for flicker free action. Unlike Arkanoid, I don't think a "patched" version was ever officially released. Therefore this title in its original form probably won't work on a real Spectrum +2A/+3.

After reading about this game in the peerless Spectrum Games Bible I then saw similar comments here by Digital Prawn.
Anyway, to cut a long story short ditto Digital Prawn. I agree with that review almost word for word.

What do you call an Irish man that keeps bouncing off the walls?


This is an extremely dull Breakout clone which was rightfully panned by critics at the time.

Crazy music !! Interesting arkanoid variation !!

Not superb but quite good !

Worth a look !!

Ricochet [Firebird Software]

1987 is a year filled with Breakout clones, although in this specific instance there's a clear Arkanoid influence too. You start with two balls at the same time, but you don't die each time you miss the remaining ball, apparently - it's not clear to me when it is lethal and when it's not. Also, you can move your paddle up and down, and catch the power up's that hover mid-screen. It's decently presented and it's not unplayable.
2,75/5

The game has OK graphics, the sound is fucking awful, and annoying, the concept is kind of nice.

The game is so flawed though I want to say it's fucking complete gash!

It isn't complete gash, but it's not far from it.

The game has a few pretty interesting ideas, it starts you off with 2 balls you have to deflect this is pretty fucked up, but you don't die if they hit the bottom of the screen, so long as you deflect them. If you don't you lose health I guess, and the bottom of the screen changes colour.

The solution, but also part of the problem is if you collect power-ups, you start to build a blocker on the bottom. the balls will bounce off that without you having to deflect them. You can also get a power-up that splits your paddle in 2, and they both work mirror image. this is actually quite a good power-up, as the majority of the time the main 2 balls strangely enough for how random they move when you're controlling a single paddle seem to adopt some kind of almost symmetry when you're controlling 2, but not always.

Worst powerup, or is the splitter, in any other Breakout clone it's fine. Split the ball into 3 means extra destruction, keep them in play as long as you can, but if 2 drop it's fine so long as 1 remains. Not in this game, getting the power-up that multiplies the balls is the worst thing you can do in this game it just means 1 more obstacle to stop hitting the bottom of the screen. It just gets annoying, it's bad.

This is not a good game at all, but it does contain some admirable ideas, and for that as crap as it is I'm not giving it the lowest score available. It contains some potentially great ideas, they were just so poorly implemented that it was about as much fun to play as getting kicked in the face, and I'm speaking from experience there. Getting kicked in the face is not fun....But neither is this game...