ARKANOID review for NES

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HdE's Totally Unoriginal Gaming Show

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Published on March 24, 2021 5:41:26 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zS0GerCWXE

Game:

Arkanoid (1986)

Category:

Review

Duration: 10:36

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HdE'S TOTALLY UNORIGINAL GAMING SHOW S03, E11
ARKANOID REVIEW FOR NES.

Few games represent the kind of drastic evolution over a genre mainstay as Taito's Arkanoid. Playing like Atari's Breakout on steroids, it's the kind of game that's far more exciting to play than it is to look at. (I mean, if it wasn't reasonably feature packed, I might not have talked about it on mic for ten minutes, right?)

Brimming with invention, Taito's spin on the bat and ball gameplay formula packed in a lot of novel new features. And in arcades, it was a genuinely neat experience, utilising an analogue dial control with which players would control their 'vaus' - which is a funky new name for the paddleat the bottom of the screen.(It stems from Arkanoid's ludicrously tacked-on plot. Don't ask.)

With simplicity, accessibility and, above all, fun gameplay going for it, it's utterly unsurprising that Arkanoid would get ported to a ton of home systems, spawn various sequels, such as Arkanoid: The Revenge of Doh, as well a whole host of clones, like Elite Systems' Batty on home computers. Of course, while those games may offer their own unique take on Arkanoid's formula, there'll always be a healthy amount of respect for the original. And deservedly so.

You might well think that, even with all its imaginitve emnbellishments, Arkanoid would be a difficult game to do wrong when converting it to home video game systems. But it poses a thorny problem, similar to that faced by conversions of games like Marble Madness. It's control system in the arcade is a tough one to replicate on consoles and computers.

That didn't stop the developers of the NES port of Arkanoid from trying, though! Sold exclusively in a bundle with the vaus controller - a paddle style peripheral to be used in place of the standard NES gamepad - this one looked set to become one of the best and most faithful home conversions yet. And perhaps, for a while, it was. But as time passes and old 1980s video game hardware starts to inevitably fail and break down, there's a question mark as to how prudent a pick up this cart might be for modern day NES devotees.

In this review, I dust down the game and get into what's good, what's bad, and whether it's playable with a standard NES gamepad. I even give you a quick peek at the Nintendo DS version of Arkanoid!

By the way... just get a load of the musical brick-breaking sounds. It could almost be ASMR.

Here's a link to the featured review shown at the end of the video - SUBSURFACE CIRCULAR for the Nintendo Switch:
https://youtu.be/iwc_ZVLnAAI


#Arkanoid
#NES
#vauscontroller

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