Breakout: Boost does not set out to reinvent the wheel, and the gameplay at its core affirms that it doesn’t really need to. The game works like it has for decades — essentially like playing Pong against a brick wall that falls apart with each successive hit, the player knocks down the wall until there’s no more wall, and a new level starts. It’s a fun time-killer, and Breakout: Boost doesn’t do much to change that.
The biggest feature the game adds is a way to manipulate how quickly the ball bounces around the level. Increasing the speed of the ball increases the point multiplier the player receives, which gives players a greater opportunity to crack the leader board with the tradeoff that the game becomes quite a bit more challenging.
Other than that in-game speed adjustments, the feature most players will notice right away is how little free content is actually available to play. Breakout: Boost offers five free levels that don’t take much time to complete. After that, everything else is pay to play.
Each of the three additional level packs costs $0.99 and contains between 70 and 80 levels. All told, that’s hardly a bad deal, though presenting the game as free, then quickly pulling the rug out from under the player probably makes the offer appear much worse than it is.
If you can stomach adding a new level pack or two, Breakout: Boost does a fine job bringing the classic Breakout experience to the iPhone. It won’t surprise or amaze you in any way, but if you need a quick nostalgia trip, it’s more than up for the challenge, assuming you either don’t mind how little of the game is offered free or you don’t mind paying an extra few bucks.
