Not only there was more creativity than ever, but the complexity of the levels was quite unprecedented for the genre. Portals, timed explosives, anything goes. This episode not only introduced new environments, new power-ups, a new game mechanic where players could collect secret golden rings throughout the levels, but it brought the level design excellence to a whole new level. The formula got a further evolution in 2004 when Reflexive released the long-awaited sequel, Lost Worlds. This gameplay loop is still incredible to this day. Last night I decided to boot it up again after years of not touching it, and I lost hours on it without realizing it. There's also the speed that increases every x amount of touches, a great score system that rewards risking with "bad" power-ups that speed you up or make the ball smaller, and the hundreds of levels of the game are just a blast to play. But two design elements are particularly notable: first of all, some of the power-ups are location-specific, which makes it so that Reflexive could effectively create "scripted" levels where certain things happen to all players, and second, all bricks move around a little bit while floating, which makes it harder for the ball(s) to keep bouncing back and forth at the same angulation. There are moving blocks, switches to turn on and off, chain reaction blocks, explosives, normally unbreakable elements (that can still be broken with smart play), all kinds of excellent power-ups that can make your life easier or harder as well. Multiple environments include different bricks and hazards, irregularly shaped blocks, and no two stages are alike: all have a creative theme that not only extends to the visuals but to how the game works, thanks to an excellent use of physics, power-ups and dynamic stages. From the backgrounds that look fine even 17 years later, the powerful electro soundtrack, the paddle's movement that feels just right with the mouse, the ball and brick physics that just stick the landing, there is nothing this game gets wrong. It was therefore fairly unexpected to see Reflexive drop an impressive (to say the least) Breakout clone, but why was it so good? And most importantly, why is it so damn good to this day? You know those, PopCap was the king in that space with stuff like Bejeweled, Zuma, Plants VS Zombies and Bookworm, but it was apparently a profitable enough business for many companies to co-exist. If you don't know Reflexive, you're forgiven: they're mainly known for making a lot of hit or miss puzzle games, match 3 clones and so on like many smaller studios did in that era on PC, those classic generic-looking 20$ puzzle games with a trial you can play for free and the unlock code you had to buy. When Ricochet Xtreme was first released in 2001 by Reflexive Entertainment, the genre was indeed shaken up from its core. The game series was also known as Rebound in some regions, for the record, possibly to avoid confusion with the Valve game of the same name. I'm talking about the Ricochet games, namely Ricochet Xtreme, Ricochet Lost Worlds, Ricochet Lost Worlds: Recharged and Ricochet Infinity. And while I really enjoyed this game back in the day, I realize it hasn't aged as well as a game series that once, between 20 on PC mainly, took the genre and simply obliterated every other game out there for quality, charm, replayability, precision, variety, content, and then some. Through levels increasing in complexity, power-ups, multiballs, special blocks and dynamic stages, the boundaries of what such a relatively limited gamestyle were pushed farther and farther, and when a DX-Ball 2 remaster was released recently, I figured I'd jump back. the art of moving your paddle on the bottom of the screen to bounce around a ball that destroys bricks on top is an old one, and many developers attempted to create the perfect formula for it. Games like Arkanoid, DX-Ball, Block Breaker, not to mention those (probably Chinese) Game Boy knockoffs with games like Tetris or Breakout pre-installed on them. It makes sense, after all: there are certain genres and games that practically reached perfection at one point, and it's hard to improve in that direction anymore, the only way to do better is go in a different direction altogether.īreakout clones were all the rage some time ago. A lot of people point at the NES or SNES installments of Mario claiming those are still the unbeaten kings of 2D platformers. Others say Doom (1993) is still the best FPS ever created. Many claim to this day Street Fighter 2 is the best fighting game ever made. It happens fairly often that the best installment in a genre remains unbeaten for long. (promo image for Ricochet Infinity, PC, 2007)
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