Test – Radon Break – A clone that does not break bricks | Xbox One

If there’s one kind of game that doesn’t age, it’s brick breakers. This simple gameplay, directly inspired by the cult Pong (1972), which invites the player to break colored blocks using a ball that is bounced on a paddle, was introduced in 1975 by Breakout. We no longer count the number of clones that have swept to surf on the success encountered with players. The most famous of these, Arkanoid, clearly served as a muse for the developers of Radon Break. But can a clone of a clone find a place in this big family?

Horizontal proofreading

No need to look for a scenario or any common thread to the sequence of levels within Radon Break. That said, the quality of writing is not what you are looking for when you start a game of breakouts. To put it simply, the main menu invites us to choose between three modes of difficulty which are distinguished by the frequency of acceleration of the ball, then to launch us directly into the heart of the matter.

The object of the game is to destroy all the bricks on the screen in order to pass to the next level. As in any brick breaker, the speed of the ball gradually increases and the game ends when the player has let all his balls pass behind the paddle. The difference between Arkanoid and Radon Break is that the stroke of the ball is horizontal and not vertical. We move our paddle up and down to bounce a marble on it and send it back towards the bricks.

For the rest, we typically find items granting advantages such as multiball, shots launched by the paddle to destroy bricks or level skipping. The usual maluses are also included, such as the shrinking of the paddle or the acceleration of the ball. However, we regret that these items are materialized by colored prisms requiring a little learning about their meaning.

Don’t be so shy

To stay on the weaknesses, we will discuss the music of the title. It’s hard to say if it’s an artistic choice, but the fact that Radon Break only has a musical loop made up of electro samples can really lead to everything and its opposite. During our test we were sometimes carried away by the musicality and sometimes completely annoyed by its repetition. However, this remains a matter of taste and sensitivity.

Radon Break, however, brings together good ideas, such as random progression in the forty levels or the animation and movement of bricks in certain stages. This makes life less monotonous for the scorers for whom this title is really intended. We can evoke a few winks in the construction of the tables which will echo the memories of the less young players. The title thus offers many hours of play and real challenges for success hunters. Without making it an essential, its reduced price makes it a game to have in your toy library to relax between two AAAs.

Tested on Xbox Series X.