Batz n Balls

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Batz n Balls is a sort of like Arkanoid but immeasurably jazzier, with funky tunes, silky graphics and improved gameplay. Taking control of a dinky bat, the idea is to bounce a steel ball around the screen, knocking out bricks in order to progress to the next level. Some bricks conveniently yield up special icons when bashed, and these icons give you a variety of powers. Although the game is quite similar to the Arkanoid series, it does throw a few newies, for example one icon makes the ball rochoset off the bottom of the screen, while another reverses your controls etc. The game offers 150 levels (plus bonus screens), and in short has addictive qualities that outweigh several heavy bags of exceptionally addictive things. At the negative side, I would say that, the score depicted at the bottom-left, makes difficult to distinguish the bat when moving on the far-left, resulting on loosing easily the ball, thus losing a life instantly.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Technically, the game is fine. The SAM Coupe offers some colorful visuals with nicely done backgrounds and sprites, though nothing to complain about or to get overly excited about, actually. Sprites move relatively fast and smooth at all times. Sound and music are similarly effective. The sound effects are well matched to the game's atmosphere, while there is a pretty good main-menu tune, and several in-game nicely composed tunes.