Why-Fi himself got off to a very rocky start in the MZX community, making absurd claims of his own Zeuxing skills and generally making a nuisance of himself. Most of us were eager to see him actually make something, and Breakout! was that something. And I've got to admit, really, that this is a pretty decent start for his first released game - even if it does commit some cardinal Breakout sins.

The first is that it's hard to distinguish the background from the bricks. For an improved version, I would recommend darkening the background. The bricks are also a little too small and hard to hit after just a few: try making them bigger.

The second Breakout sin is that the paddle is controlled with a keyboard, and there is no real "control" over the ball. Even Atari's original Breakout at least allowed you to change the ball's trajectory by hitting it off angle with the paddle. But in this version, the ball always travels at perfect 45-degree angles, making it yet harder to hit the bricks with it. And it certainly doesn't help that the paddle is too slow. That's why most Breakouts use the mouse or some type of paddle controller.

Finally, the ball doesn't disappear whenever it is lost down the drain. It simply rebounds off the bottom of the screen, resulting in some very cheap Game Overs by accidentally trapping the ball beneath the paddle and having it rebound until I've lost two or even three lives to just one mistaken movement.

Overall, the game could have been a contender if there was just some polish and actual gameplay testing behind it. As it stands, though, I can't justify giving it more than two stars, and even then I feel guilty for having given it that much.