Impact! (ST) - 925 - ACE Issue 1 (Oct 1987)

SUPPLIER AUDIOGENIC VERSION TESTED ATARI ST REVIEWER ANDY WILTON

IF Arkanoid owed a certain amount to that golden oldie Breakout. Impact owes a great deal more to Arkanoid. You know the drill - move your bat from side to side, trying to keep a ball bouncing round the playing area. As the ball bounces off the patterns of coloured bricks there it breaks them down, often releasing "tokens" which can give either bat or ball useful extra properties if you catch them. Clear the screen and you get another, harder pattern to work on.

Derivative needn't mean bad though, and in this case it certainly doesn't. Original touches and subtle differences from its predecessors give Impact's gameplay a character of its own, but there are more obvious distinctions too.

Above all, Impact is terrific to listen to. It doesn't quite have Arkanoid's visual appeal, but on sound effects it wins easily. There's the xylophone chime every time the ball hits a brick, the screech of your laser and missile fire, the glockenspiel trill when you catch a falling token - all of these merging into a frenzied, ridiculous cacophony as the ball really starts moving.

On the gameplay side, the clever system for getting extra powers adds a lot to Impact's appeal. From time to time, small yellow tokens tumble down from bricks that the ball has just destroyed. Catch one of these with the bat and click the right mouse button, and you'll engage the 'slow' option (see the POWERS box). Catching two tokens, and clicking the right button gets you a magnetic bat, catch three to divide the ball, four to get a wide bat and so on. A small pad on the right of the screen shows you the power you've 'earned' so far.

When you select a power, you lose your tokens and start again from zero. You have to spend them wisely then, but this can be tricky. Unless you're counting tokens you've got to keep an eye on the icon pad, without losing your concentration on the ball and bat. Missing the option you want by catching too many tokens can be as bad as selecting too early, because there's no easy way back.

You cant carry tokens across from one frame to another, but you do get 1000 points for any you don't use. This is an enormous boost, and if you're going for a high score you probably won't want to use your tokens at all.

Impact is amazingly addictive stuff, and just has the edge over Arkanoid in itself. But there's an additional reason for preferring it, in the form of a screen-designer. After Impact's 80 built-in frames (Arkanold has 33) there's room for another 48 of your own design. These can incorporate any of the games different brick types, aliens and bombs. You've also got control over the ball's speed and acceleration so there's plenty of scope for you to experiment.