Phoenix Ball

Phoenix Ball is an Arkanoid clone with modern graphics. In Phoenix Ball, like in other Breakout-style games, the objective is to destroy every destructible block by making a ball bounce off the platform that you are controlling.

If you miss the ball and it goes by the platform, you lose a life. In the case of Phoenix Ball, the game plays very similarly to Arkanoid, but it features new effects, and an array of power-ups that can help you destroy blocks faster. There are also some power-ups that make it harder for you to play the game, so you have to be very selective when collecting power-ups.

After playing the game for a few minutes, some annoyances became very evident to me. First of all, the game mechanics are not as good as the mechanics of Arkanoid. When you hit the ball with a specific part of the platform, the ball will bounce in the same direction most of the time. For example, whenever I hit the ball with the left part of the platform, the ball would bounce towards the left, regardless of whether the platform was moving or not or of the direction the ball would come from. This would not happen in Arkanoid, for example. Another problem is that the action goes on so fast that you can't see the power-ups. I only realized I had collected a power-up when a voice told me. Some of the effects also get in the way of gameplay. Another problem with this game is the design of the menus. One example is the text from the "How to play" screen. The background is blue with bright red text on it. This color choice makes it very hard to read the text.