Ricochet Recharged review by Absolutist. Not another Arkanoid clone.

Long live the Arkanoids... Does anyone really know the secret of such a great popularity of this kind of computer games? Hundreds and hundreds of arkanoid clones known at present time will trample down any analytically minded gamer :). But this thought shall prevail only till one sees Ricochet. When you see it, you know - that's definitely something different. Reflexive Arcade decided to break the spell of uniformity and banality and released its own arkanoid style game - Ricochet: Recharged. Let's start digging it.

At first, you need to create your game account and choose your ship. Yes, the bat is called the ship here, and the breaking ball is the Sphere. Then you are offered to choose the level pack and difficulty level. Arhh, there's something to say about level packs and levels themselves in this game. Yes! There are four packs with three pack types you can choose from - two regular level packs, ScreenSavers pack and Challenging pack.

Screen Savers pack contains 17 extremely beautiful and attractive levels. You should first sit back and relax for a while watching those nice bricks and thingies before you start demolishing them. Challenging pack - well, the title speaks for itself. If you feel yourself strong enough - go and try it. It's harder but more exciting - each level gives a bunch of a thrill!

Levels differ not only by the number or location of bricks, but also by level environment. Here are the main of them - The Sunken City, Volcanic Crust, Mayan Temple, Alien Tech.

After playing the game for two hours I should admit - this is breakout action at it's best! Don't know if Reflexive team was the first to introduce the curved bat, but it's a great idea, as it allows you to fully control the sphere. Bonuses are plentiful - there are negative, neutral and helpful ones, and, the most important thing, each one is really needful, unique and significantly affects the gameplay. For instance, once my sphere got stuck inside the steel blocks, and seemed to never return to me.

But suddenly the Acid bonus appeared - I took it and… look, my ball can melt steel! I'll just name a few bonuses that impressed me the most: Laser Sphere (your sphere starts shooting laser beams randomly), Homing Missiles (they are really homing. Fire at will!) and EMP Bomb (turns your sphere into remotely controlled destructive bomb).

As for the graphics, sometimes it seems to be a little bit too sombre, one may wish there were more bright and lively environments. But the level of details and the original style of this game surely make up for this.

One more significant feature of Ricochet is that the brick field itself is not passive anymore. There's a level where bricks of different shapes and kinds form a whole ship. It sails from one side to the other and your task is to destroy it... Well, you should see that level yourself to understand - the ship will launch torpedoes at you, some of its bottom bricks can't be destroyed, so you'll have to aim ship's engine to make it explode, or pick the acid bonus to penetrate its armor...

The game sounds are good and match the style of the game. The music is also made really professional, the only thing left to desire is the ingame jukebox, where the player can choose the tracks. You can download main sound themes from the official site.

Game interface is well structured and clear. In the menu you'll find all needful settings and options except… game saving option. But the game is saved automatically every time you finish a set of ten levels. Later you can start any of these sets (but not the particular level, as I have expected).

The game has built-in level editor for those who feel creative:)!

The drawbacks… hmm, maybe this one will do. The absence of a decent plot is quite a usual phenomenon among the games of this genre. Ricochet is no exception. I couldn't find the game story of any kind neither at the official site nor in the game itself. So, with no odd prefaces you are plunged into game process.

Some might say that Ricochet is just another Arkanoid clone, but I can tell you that the difference it brings really makes it stand out among the other games of the genre.

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