If you’re familiar with
WHAT’S HOT
the arcade game Arkanoid or any of its variants,
you’ll find Acky’s XP Breakout PPC very familiar.
It’s modeled after that game, but it adds a number of
additional elements to make it even more interesting.
The graphics are very well rendered but display
quickly as well Furthermore, Isotope224
Graphics’ programmers give you exceptional control
over the game play. You can even create your own
levels to play.
Acky’s XP Breakout PPC installs using the
SETUP
standard ActiveSync Add/Remove programs feature.
You can install the program in Main Memory or on a
Storage Card without any significant speed issues.
The installation routine also puts a shortcut in the
"Games" folder of your Pocket PC’s Start menu, exactly
where it should be.
When Acky’s XP Breakout PPC starts, you’ll get the main menu screen as
shown below:
The main menu screen
The Isotope224 programmers are people after my own
heart. They give you substantial control over
all of the elements of XP Breakout’s interface by clicking on SETTINGS. Settings are categorized as you see in the menu below:
The Settings menu lets
you control virtually every aspect of the game.
Tapping on CONTROLS gives you another menu:
The Controls menu lets
you change control buttons and paddle speed and
accelleration.
CUSTOMIZE CONTROLS allows you to choose which hardware
buttons do what while you’re playing the game:
The Customize Controls
screen allows you to set your hardware buttons to a
variety of functions.
In
addition to the controls you’d expect to see, there
are some other interesting additions: You can
program a hardware button to take a screen shot to
prove you have bragging rights, switch between full
screen and windowed display, change or stop the
background music, and even switch off or completely
shut down the program. The default assignments
are shown above.
Clicking on DIR SPEED will increment how fast the pad
moves by 0.1 from 0.1 up to 2.0x. Clicking on
DIR ACCEL will decrement the time the pad takes to
accelerate fully by 0.05 from 0.5 to 0.0.
Clicking on GRAPHICS in the SETTINGS menu brings up
the menu you see below:
The Graphics menu lets
you change the display contrast, what items are
displayed, and how the displays are drawn.
Clicking on HIGH CONTRAST will switch between more
color diversity and higher contrast modes. GAME
OPTIONS allows you to turn off and on the Star Field
background, the Space Gases background, Power Item
Morphing (where power items change shape while they
fall), the Disintegrator, Highlighting on the powerups,
and Bonus Effects graphics. DRAWING OPTIONS
allows you to set the orientation for better
left-handed or right-handed play, the frequency that
the full screen is updated, whether the program will
update only the changed areas of the screen (for
faster updating), whether the program shows you the
frame rate (for judging performance), and whether the
program will limit itself to a given frame rate (so
the action doesn’t take place too quickly).
Clicking on SOUND in the SETTINGS menu brings up
the following menu:
The Sound menu lets you
change which sound elements are played as well as
change the volume and rate.
The SOUND menu allows you to turn off and on "metal"
sound effects, the sound track information display,
and stereo sound output. You can also control
the sound volume, the background music volume, and the
playback rate.
Clicking on GAME PLAY in the SETTINGS menu brings up
menu you see below:
The Game Play menu lets
you change how the balls behave, set the display
language, and choose whether to display automatic
help.
NEW BALL CONTROL allows you to make the ball follow
the pad while it’s being created, making it easier to
hit when it’s released. BALL COLLISION sets
whether balls will bounce off each other when they
collide or just pass through each other. AUTO
HELP displays pop-up help dialogs when new elements
enter the playing field. LANGUAGE allows you to
change which language the game is played in. RESET HELP resets the help dialogs for the current
player.
Clicking on STATISTICS in the SETTINGS menu brings up
following menu:
The Statistics menu lets
you choose whether to display statistics and whether
to submit them for High Scores.
SHOW STATISTICS turns off and on the statistics that
appear at the bottom of the display. AUTO SUBMIT
STATISTICS will send your statistics to Isotope224
over an internet connection to add to their hall of
fame page on their web site. RESET LOGGED ONLINE
will reset logged statistics for the current player.
The Level Editor
You
can also create your own levels with a built-in level
editor. To get to the level editor you click
CREATE from the main menu and then EDITOR from the
Create Menu. You’ll get an Editor screen like
the one below
:
The Level Editor lets
you select which bricks and special power-ups appear
in which locations.
The
Level Editor displays the various brick types at the
top and the special power-ups at the bottom. To
place a brick anywhere on the level, click on the
brick, then click on the location where you want it to
appear. To place a power-up on the level, click
on the power-up icon. Each time you click, the
number of that type of power-up will increment.
(Power-ups are always placed at random around the
level and appear only when the brick on top of them is
destroyed.) To get a brief explanation of the
brick or power-up, click and hold on the icon.
The level editor is where I discovered the only bug in
the game: To increase the number of a particular
power-up, you click on the icon. To decrease the
number, you right-click on it. Pocket PCs don’t
have any way of right-clicking. The icons at
center/bottom of the editor screen (
),
from left to right, open a previously saved level,
save the current level, mirror the current level
vertically over the center green vertical line, mirror
the current level horizontally, show and hide the
brick grid, and exit the level editor.
Once
you’ve created some levels, you can put them together
into a "package." A package file is simply a
text file with information on which levels are
included. The Help file explains how to format a
package file.
PROGRAM FEATURES
Starting a New Game
Clicking on PLAY from the main menu
calls up a Games Control screen like you see below:
The Games Control screen
lets you change player, package, or level.
The top section of the Games Control menu lets you
add, delete, and change players. You can also
change the difficulty level for the current player.
The middle section lets you select a different level
package (if any additional packages are available), to
delete the current package, and to "reset" the current
package statistics for a new player. The bottom
section lets you choose which level of the current
package you’re playing.
Clicking on the [Statistics] button attempts to connect to
the Isotope224 Graphics web site over the internet to
show you how your statistics on this level compare to
other players.
Clicking on the [Play] button will start up the next level
for you to play. If you’re familiar with Arkanoid or it’s variants from
pinball arcades, this game will seem very familiar,
but there are some additional twists and variations.
Below is an example of a
level during the ball-creation phase:
Acky’s XP Breakout PPC
creating a ball for play.
One of the things I like about the game is that ball
creation is done manually, not automatically by the
game (except in the case of certain power-ups where an
extra ball is added). That gives you a time to
catch your breath between each ball and before the
next level play starts. Notice the red and blue
sliders at the left and right of the playing field.
They show you the level of red energy (which you get
from destroying red bricks, of course) and blue energy
(from blue bricks). When you have sufficient
energy of both types, you can create a new ball.
You can have as many balls as you can created working
at the same time. Notice, also, the stars of
various bricks. Those indicate that some type of
power-up is hiding behind the brick. When you
destroy the brick, the power-up will begin to drop to
the bottom. If you catch it with your paddle,
you’ll gain that particular power. Power-ups
include such things as a wider paddle, slower balls,
an extra ball, and, my personal favorite, a
directional beam that shows which direction the ball
will bounce when it bounces off the paddle. As
you might guess, you can angle the ball behind the
bricks so that it bounces between the back layers and
the back wall as well as bouncing it off the paddle to
destroy bricks in the front. There’s a
screen-shot of it below:
Acky’s XP Breakout PPC
with the bounce angle power-up
One of the most important features in a game for me is
the ability to pause the game. It never fails,
you get nicely into a level and the phone rings.
Fortunately, there’s a tiny "x" in the upper right
hand corner of the screen. Tapping on it pauses
the game and brings up the menu you see below:
Acky’s XP Breakout PPC
with the Pause menu shown
The
Pause menu will let you take a breather or answer the
phone, after which you simply tap RESUME to continue.
MINIMIZE keeps the game paused, but loaded in memory
so you can look up that contact that you need and then
return to the game. The Pause menu also gives
you access to SETTINGS, so you can turn off the sound
so as not to interfere with your spouses e-book
reading. You can also QUIT the current level,
returning you to the main menu.
isotope224 has
HELP SUPPORT
a full on-line help file for Acky’s XP Breakout. In addition, there is a basic
FAQ page on the Isotope244 web site. Acky’s
XP Breakout PPC also has built-in help and a very
extensive first-time players mode which offers helps,
hints, and other assistance as you play the game.
You should also know that purchasing a license allows you
unlimited
e-mail support (as well as upgrades to all future
versions).
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Acky’s XP Breakout PPC runs on ARM/XScale processors under Pocket PC
2002, Windows Mobile 2003, and Windows Mobile 2003,
Second Edition with English, German, French, Dutch,
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese language ROMs.
There are two versions of the program. The
standard version runs on 320×240 QVGA-resolution
displays. The VGA version runs on 640×480
VGA-resolution displays. Isotope224 Graphics is
one of the first developers to produce a version of a
game than doesn’t just run on a VGA display but
actually takes advantage of the larger resolution. It’s good to see and hopefully the start of a trend.
Acky’s XP Breakout PPC requires a whopping 11.5MB of storage
memory to install but only 5MB of program memory to run.
BUGS AND WISHES
I only had one issue with Acky’s XP Breakout PPC
during my testing and it doesn’t affect game-play at
all. The issue was that the built-in level
editor requires a right-click to decrease the number
of power-ups in a level. The Pocket PC doesn’t
have a right-click. Isotope224 Graphics needs to create a PPC-compatible
method for decreasing power-ups.
You can purchase Acky’s XP Breakout PPC
PURCHASING
from the isotope224 web site for $12.95. There
is also a trial version.
PROS
- Visually
striking graphics - 150
different levels - Manual new
ball start - Multiple
methods for controlling the paddle - First-time
player assist mode - Pause and
Minimize - Extensive
user control of all elements of game-play - Version
for WM2003 First or Second Edition VGA resolution - Reasonable
price
CONS
- Right
mouse button used in level editor - Help isn’t
always PPC-specific
You tend to expect a lot
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
on the graphics front when the name of the company
includes "graphics." As you’ve seen, Isotope224 Graphics doesn’t
let you down with Acky’s XP Breakout PPC. The
programmers seem to have thought of just about
everything to make your game-playing experience
agreeable: You can control the paddle with your
choice of the directional pad or the stylus. You
can minimize the game to work with other programs for
a while. You can take full advantage of
VGA-resolution displays.
The game-play is constantly stimulating with layout changes
on every level and enough other special items
sprinkled throughout various levels. If that’s
not enough, you can always create your own levels to
play.
All told, Acky’s XP Breakout PPC is an excellent game at an
excellent price. If you’re looking for an
arcade-style game for your PPC, look no further. Download the trial version and have a go.
All screenshots in this
review are taken using
SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro
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