There is a certain amount of tweaking you can do to an old formula before it begins to lose some of the identity that made it so great in the first place. In some cases this can be of great improvement, much like Fallout 3 altering the RPG feel of Oblivion by adding an FPS element and creating something that people would rate higher than what had came before (well, I did anyway).
More often than not though, it can lead us down a path we would rather not see. Some classics of the older generation have had their insides fiddled about with, given a new lick of paint and some jazzed up ideas that we’re all meant to receive as it’s second coming. Hyperballoid HD has a difficult line to tread and is taking on a lot expanding and aiming to revamp a classic and make it in its own style.
I was (and still am) a fan of Taito’s Arkanoid. It was a simple case of bat and ball working in perfect harmony, with everything working at a speed which you felt was fast enough without being as slow as a week in jail. It was pure, flawless gaming. Now the only problem I have with this new PSN addition is that the difficulty isn’t really there, as after the initial play a sense of boredom began to settle within the first 20 minutes. The ball itself was just too slow to actually cause ANY problems whatsoever, so I decided to try an experiment, mainly to make sure I wasn’t becoming the pixel equivalent of Tommy, the “Pinball Wizard” that The Who kept singing about, although my retro skills are that of legend, of course (get off your high horse – Ed.).
