Brick Breaker Revolution 3D review

We review Brick Breaker Revolution 3D, a breakout game that puts a cunning spin on the classic genre

Published on Sep 3, 2009

Brick Breaker Revolution 3D’s title may make it sound like a Berlin Wall-bashing game, but really it’s just a twist on the arcade classic. You control a paddle at the bottom of the screen and have to send a ball crashing into a constellation of blocks above.

It’s a gameplay archetype that has caused many blisters over more than 30 years, and although Brick Breaker Revolution 3D is not necessarily undeserving of its self-appointed title, it’s this classic gameplay that’s at its core.

The revolution in question is in the structure of its main Revolution mode. Instead of featuring a succession of discrete levels, once you’ve hit a particular block in a level, the top and bottom of the levels open out.

Once this happens, a second paddle appears at the top of the screen, mirroring the movements of the one below. You can either bounce the ball back into play after this, or let it roll over onto the next level.

Once you’ve moved onto the next level, you can still go back to previous ones by letting the ball drop through the bottom of the screen- once you’ve hit the border-opening block that is. This structure gives the Revolution mode a strangely organic feel that’s well matched by the stylised, almost minimalist, 3D visuals.

Although the flowing nature of this main game mode keeps the pace up, Brick Breaker Revolution 3D is actually a lot less frantic than the majority of its brick-breaking rivals. The Time Attack mode remedies this somewhat, placing a time limit on the main mode, while the Classic mode dumps the dynamics of the Revolution mode, just requiring you to blast every block in 99 levels.

There are multi-ball and weapons power-ups in each mode, but they never serve to make the game truly frantic. In spite of the often steep level of challenge, Brick Breaker Revolution 3D always manages to maintain a chilled-out veneer.

Whether or not this is what you’re looking for should dictate whether you plump for this game over, say, Gameloft’s Block Breaker Deluxe 2- arguably Revolution’s closest rival.

Although not as impressive as when it first appeared on mobile phones, and missing the scope of that version’s great achievement structure too, Brick Breaker Revolution 3D is a game that brings its own sophisticated style to the party.