I'm always a bit dubious when any old video game, whose original incarnation is usually very near and dear to my heart, is dragged into the modern-day cuisinart of cutscenes, 3D animation, and prefabricated storylines. What amazed me is how well Breakout survived the translation. The game itself plays much like the original, only with vastly updated graphics and sounds, which don't hurt it at all. There are some techniques that it helps to learn, which you'll discover in the tutorial section. Every once in a while, mini-games that take on the form of interactive cutscenes break up the action - a mad chase with a hungry wolf, and a battle to keep a flock of ducks off of a raft, for example. Overall, Breakout has been reborn in a way that doesn't betray the original game's addictive potential. Very well done.

Perhaps I was tainted by the job Hasbro Interactive did with Pong, but this just seemed to lack something. It was fun, but I wasn't left with the same sense of awe mixed with nostalgia that Pong left me with. It also was a bit too easy... I managed to complete almost all of the game in one gaming session. Over all, not a bad job, ....