Review by: Dave VanDyk

These days, I honestly can't help but get the feeling that the gaming industry is trying to figure out exactly what it wants to do with itself. While there are many new projects forging on ahead to try and break new ground, there are also an ever-increasing number of projects with the goal of re-making classic games in a new context. Everything that was old is new again, with developer and publisher Sidhe's Shatter being the latest example of this trend.

Granted, remakes of Arkanoid and BreakOut are hardly anything groundbreaking, but what stands out about this game is how much effort the developer actually put into trying to make it something more than just a fancy rehash. Considered more of a "reimagining" of the block-breaking classic that was originally spawned in the 70's, Shatter takes the simple gameplay mechanic of bouncing a ball around with a paddle to smash as many blocks as possible, and adds a bunch of few new tricks and a nice layer of complexity to the mix.

Each level squares your mechanical paddle-doohickey and the bouncing projectile it launches against a wide variety of blocks. All you have to do is keep bouncing the 'ball' between yourself and the opposing blocks until you either run out of lives (by failing to catch the ball), or you run out of blocks, in which case you move on to the next level.

Actually winning isn't quite that simple though. As you advance through the game, you'll start seeing more and more block variations; some blocks will combust and take out other nearby blocks with them, others might detach from the rest of the group and freely move around (which can be a bit of a problem if you let them hit you), while others still might require multiple hits to knock out, or will exert their own gravitational pull on your ball and deflect it in other directions.

These factors don't necessarily mean that it's difficult to advance from one level to the next, although that's not quite what I meant by "winning". Since the game is multiplier-oriented, it's important that you try and get your multiplier as high as possible before knocking down the majority of the blocks in a given level, otherwise reaching a brag-worthy score becomes much harder. This is where the game's "Suck" and "Blow" controls come into play.

Holding down the "Suck" button will start bringing any free fragments towards you (increasing your multiplier if you can collect them), but it will also cause your ball to change heading and possibly even come back your way when you least want it to. Alternatively you can also use the "Blow" button to push free-floating objects away from you and similarly affect your ball's course. As a final cool touch, collecting fragments will also increase your power level - eventually to the point where you can unleash a "Shard Storm" that lasts for several seconds and utterly annihilates anything directly in front of you. A proper usage of these tools is key to getting the highest possible multiplier and (quickly) succeeding at some of the game's trickier levels.