Oh God! I've just been transported back to the late '70 bad clothes... glam rock music and... Breakout! Breakout by Atari, the essential bat and ball game. It came along in the early days of video games and took the world (and my pocket) by storm. Along with Super Breakout, these games became legend. Years later, Taito dusted down the old format, added some new bangs and whistles and created Arkanoid which became popular with its easy gameplay and nice visuals. This game marked the return of Arkanoid, in fact the Revenge of Doh, the main baddie from the first game. Tweaking the gameplay slightly and adding some new features, Does Taito have another smash on their hands?

The game is displayed again with the player sitting firmly at the bottom of the screen only moving left and right with the oposing bricks sitting in various settings at the top of the screen. The player must ensure that the ball does not pass him when played in the field as this deletes a life. The bat (or in the game, your VAUS spacecraft) can bounce the ball back across the screen and must dispose of all the bricks using refection. The player is also aided by powerups given by various selected random bricks. Expanded bat, sticky bat, laser beams (this time more frequent than the first game), multiball bonuses and even a neat power ball that smashes through all the bricks it passes in one go.

The 32 levels are varied in brick design. There are different kinds of bricks you see, from normal  ones, multi hit and even indestructable ones to cause the player pain.
Also on each screen are the enermy sprites that enter through sliding doors at the top of the screen. Rather than being part of the screen quota of killings, these guys just add more difficulty to the game as they do not kill the player but get in the way of the ball. If the ball hits one, it reacts as if hitting a brick and sends it back down to the player. These get more frenzy when the lower down on the screen these beasties become as trying to get the ball past them without hitting them becomes a game within itself.

Many lives can be lost this way. More frustratingly, the ball can increase speed if the bricks are not cleared fast enough making levels that include enemies and indestructable bricks and a fast gaining ball frentic fun.
The C64 version is a one load affair making the game more like the arcade game rather than waiting around for code to load. The graphics are more sluggish than the original Arkanoid game released years before but indeed are very nicely done, colourful and bright. The sound this time around was not produced by Martin Galway maker of some the Commodore's better sound moments including Rambo and Wizball but by Jonathan Dunn who created some nice pieces in Platoon and Total Recall.

The game was programmed by Ocean/Imagine in-house programmer, Allan Shortt who also created the C64 versions of other arcade games including the brillaint Combat School and Athena. With this team is the arcade conversion of Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh up to scratch?

Welcome to the botany class. Today we'll speak about kiwi, a juicy fuit with green peel containing a soft pulp... hmm... maybe something's going wrong... oh yes, I've just been informed by the director that this is Zzap!Test not botany, so the kiwi must be some sort of videogame's main character. But oh, how could a green fruit full of seeds be the star of a videogame and, the most important thing... what does Newzealand have to do with this all?
Of course people at Taito's didn't go crazy for the vitaminic properties of the wonderful fruit. In fact the kiwi we're about to talk is nothing but a tender bird, nidifying in the Newzealandese archipelago, who simply shares the same name as the fruit: nothing else than that!

So we have a kiwi called Tiki, a terrible walrus having such little bizarre name as Wally Walrus, and his tasty daily lunch: a batch composed of the whole family of the chicky hero (who luckily escaped from the kidnap). The story begins at the Auckland Zoo and it consists of a desperate seek for Tiki's brothers, cousins, friends and relatives, all imprisoned and scattered all around the archipelago (they remind much as Tweety in his cage).
Each island is composed of four smaller areas, each representing a game stage, being loaded one at once. The final area always ends with a challenge against bosses, each having their own shape and attack mode. What about a "matrioska" doll with laser gun? Or do you prefer a frozen whale spitting snow as if it was an ice volcano?

The kiwi is a quite similar bird to the quail: his tiny wings and remarkable weight don't allow him to fly... well, he's the perfect character for a platform videogame, where our heroes normally use to jump here and there without flying! By the way, Tiki can cross empty areas by applying to the oldest way in the world: steal a flying vehicle from an opponent, after unsaddling him.
Available vehicles vary quite a bit: you can take a montgolfier, a toy-duck, a flying saucer or balloon (can be both driven by the upper and bottom side) each having different features as handyful use and resistance to attacks. Our bird also has a pocket underwater mask and mouth-piece allowing him to swim in the abysses for a limited time.

Apart from jumping around happily, the chicky is a real wrangler, and this adventure is a great chance for him to practise with his bow, as his kiwi-grandfather taught him. So let's see him battling such cartoonish, typically New Zealandese opponents as koalas etc.
And what about the ability to change weapon in such a humorous platformer? Here comes the weaponry: huge laser guns, bombs and a wizard's rods spitting bouncing fireballs. We can also find other useful items such as clocks (stop time for a few seconds), joystick levers (increase the capability to fly), shoes (Tiki runs faster) and magic books (clear all on-screen enemies at once). Final words about the greatly useful letter items: by completing the EXTEND word we'll get an extra life... oh well, what a hard life for adventurer kiwis!