Usually when it comes to Nintendo consoles, launch titles are pretty darn good. The Game Boy had its fair share, even though none of them created a revolution like, say Super Mario Bros. Alleyway, Nintendo’s “clone” of Atari’s classic arcade hit Breakout, was far from pretty darn good. It was a title where almost no effort was made to add to the original recipe. There’s none of Nintendo’s typical innovation to be found here, and is one of the most simplistic versions of the game…but it has Mario in it. Cool, right?
Breakout is basically a variation of the legendary Pong. It is a paddle game, but instead of playing a sort of tennis match against another paddle, here you bounce a ball against a wall of bricks, slowly breaking the wall apart, while being careful of not losing the ball. Future instalments, the most famous of them being Arkanoid, would add different bricks, weapons, and even items that affected the paddle in one way or another. None of those things can be found here.
Alleyway is Breakout. Simple as that. It’s a boring, ancient block breaker video game that has been surpassed by its many different versions time and time again. Okay, Nintendo didn’t really innovate when it created its own port of Tetris for its handheld, but Tetris needs no additions really. As a result, the gameplay becomes extremely boring in Alleyway way too soon. There are stages where the brick wall moves around, or slowly comes closer to the bottom, but it all feels the same. You slowly bounce a ball back and forth, slowly hitting brick after brick, while life slowly fades away. Oh, and Mario seems to be drivin’ the darn thing. Does this matter? Not really.
