PowBall Renaissance

PowBall Renaissance is an excellent 2D retro breakout with two modes of play; i.e. single player & local multiplayer. There are several power ups that are activated by breaking bricks, and some of which can also be purchased via the shop that is accessible at the end of every level. Some of the bricks you destroy turn into collectable power ups; however these have a limited time span, so you must hit them as soon as possible to gain the power up. Before they disappear they will start to flash; giving you some warning of their demise. To use the shop you have to collect crystals (called alchemites) that appear when you destroy bricks, enemies, asteroids or space saucers. Each crystal collected is worth ten alchemites. The local multiplayer mode can be played against bots or up to two other players; or, you can play cooperatively. If the cooperative mode is switched off, it will require each player to have a ball in play and turns on friendly fire when using either the rockets, lasers and bullets There are three control options when playing multiplayer using the Arrow keys, WASD & Mouse; plus a fourth if you set up a game controller. There are three difficulty le…

A Blast from the Past! Think you've played the best Arkanoid game ever? Then you haven't played PowBall Renaissance yet! A remake of the 1996 classic PowBall, following in its footsteps. More PowBall to You!

Another clone of arkanoid, but the one which tries a new approach to the genre rather than copying its sucess. I played the original way back since its original release in 1996 and loved it right away, because it innovated the concept. And this remake is brilliant. Also, it is quite stable since it runs very well on my Toshiba laptop and hasn't crashed not even once. Even though I prefer the original, do not miss the chance to try this version. It is simply something you need to try before dismissing it as another Arkanoid rip-off. The concept is the same, the gameplay, is quite different. Go take a ride with it. One quip I do have is, why three players instead of four? I'm pretty sure it would have been slightly better if four players were at the same time enjoying it. But alas, just a tinny weenie complaint.

Powball is back! I loved the original DOS game back in the day and this is more of the same, with a modern fresh coat of paint. This is honestly the best Arkanoid-style game I've ever played.

PowBall Renaissance is a reboot of a 1995 Arkanoid/Breakout ripoff called PowBall. The core gameplay is the typical brick breaking stuff, and there's a huge laundry list of gimmicks, powerups and obstacles, and even multiplayer co-op modes. It's like a swiss army knife version of Arkanoid. That doesn't mean it's great... it's the year 2021 at the time of this review and the gaming industry moved on from the arcade cabinets of the 1980's, which of course inspired the PowBall ripoff in 1995, which this is a reboot of. I'd say the same thing about Pac-Man being given a reboot (in fact, I did). The technical execution here is lacklustre, with floaty controls, and a rather poor translation of the game to the contemporary 16:9 widescreen format. The in-game art assets (some of them anyway) look painfully stretched. What we really have here is a nostalgia gouge with a $5 USD price tag slapped on it, when you can play free brickbreaker games on the web or on app stores if you really want, so paying for this 2D arcade game throwback (despite all the unnecessary bells and whistles) is just something I can't suggest to gamers.

Obviously someones first game, these kind of games have been around since the atari, before my time but ive played a few of them throughout my life so I can appreciate the retro vibes this game gives off! Thumbs up!