Atari continues retro remake trend with Breakout: Boost+

Breakout: Boost+ is a new iOS game published by Atari and developed by SixHourSoft. It's a remake of previous iOS title Breakout: Boost, which was itself a modernization of Atari's classic arcade and early home console hit Breakout. Breakout: Boost+'s gameplay is very simple, and hasn't changed much since its 1976 ancestor. Players control a paddle at the bottom of the screen by tapping or sliding just underneath where they would like it to move. Tapping moves it instantly, while sliding allows for more gradual movement. The goal on each level is to destroy an arrangement of bricks by knocking a bouncing ball back into them. The player can adjust the speed of the ball at will by moving a slider on the left side of the screen -- higher speeds make it more difficult but provide the player with a larger bonus to the score they get from destroying bricks. Dropping the last ball on screen causes the player to lose a life. Certain bricks have special properties -- some explode, some release additional balls for the player to deal with, others drop capsules containing powerups or score bonuses for the player. Certain specific bricks imbue the ball or the paddle with special properties -- an acid ball ploughs through bricks rather than bouncing off them, for example, while a missile powerup allows the paddle to destroy bricks by shooting them as well as bouncing the ball into them. The game is split across four episodes, each containing 25 levels for a total of 100. All episodes carry the same aesthetic theme, itself identical to that seen in the original Breakout: Boost. Unlike the original game, however, which offered five levels for free and sold three additional "booster packs" containing 70-80 additional levels for $.99 each, the entire 100 levels are available in the $.99 app, with no additional in-app purchases at this time. Breakout: Boost+ also offers a few new types of brick over the original game, providing fans of the original with new challenges and newcomers a good place to start. Social features for the game include Game Center and OpenFeint compatibility for the sharing of leaderboard scores and achievements. Breakout: Boost+ is part of Atari's ongoing efforts to resurrect and modernize its classic properties on a variety of platforms, a strategy which has previously seen a Facebook-based social version of Asteroids; an iOS version of Asteroids which reimagines the game as a twin-stick shooter; the 80-game Atari Greatest Hits arcade and 2600 console compilation for iOS and Android; and web-based versions of many of its 80s arcade machines. According to our tracking service AppData, Breakout: Boost+ is currently placed at No. 228 in Top Paid Apps, No. 315 in Top Paid iPad Apps, No. 111 in Top Paid Games and No. 135 in Top Paid iPad Games.

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Atari continues retro remake trend with Breakout: Boost+

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