In 1976 Atari introduced the world to a game inspired by Pong, a game called Breakout. In this game the player controls a paddle at the bottom of the screen to keep a ball bouncing in the screen in order to slowly destroy a wall of coloured bricks. Miss the ball when it comes to the bottom of the screen and lose a turn.
Clear all the bricks and move onto the next level with another wall of bricks. Since then, Breakout has seen ports to many game systems and has generated many different clones, including some arcade favorites that added new elements to this basic formula. One such clone is 2 Bits Ball Wall (2BBW) for the GBA. Though this game retains the same basic elements of Breakout, it doesn’t have just a flat wall of bricks for the player to smash. The bricks are organized in different shapes to make the action more fun for the player. 2BBW is also a sequel to an earlier version of the game released in 2002 for the GBA, 1BBW. This version, however, features 60 levels of play, password support and four colours per tile instead of the two colours of the original version. 2BBW has beautifully coloured graphics and very nice sound to accompany the action. There’s plenty of variety in the different layouts of the bricks to keep you coming back. Overall, 2BBW is a very good game that keeps the elements of Breakout but adds its own touch to the tried and true formula. The game can be freely downloaded online, so go ahead and give it a spin.
