Mobile Games

Introducing a Modern Classic

If you're familiar with the classic arcade games Breakout and Pong, Absolute Twin Blades may also seem very familiar. No, it isn't a blatant rip-off of Atari's tricky ball hitters, more like a modern reworking. Classic games are called 'classics' for a good reason and if Absolute Twin Blades is going to be labelled with the privilege, it needs to have that same addictive challenge that its predecessors have.

The aim is to defeat the alien invasion by destroying all of the brick entities in the level. To achieve this, you need to rotate the blades and steer a ball towards the bricks in the centre. If you miss the ball, you lose a life. The two blades (bats) rotate simultaneously in a circle at opposite ends of the grid, which takes a little while to adapt to as you're never really sure which direction the blades will turn while scrambling to get to a stray ball. When you finally get the hang of the movement, it becomes second nature and every hit of the ball is tense.

Each level comes with a 5 minute timer, but this generally isn't an issue. The issue is keeping that little ball within the circular playing field and taking out the bricks. Sometimes it's a little difficult to judge which direction the ball is going. Naturally, it's the part of the blade the ball touches which determines the direction it'll head off to. This can be difficult when you have to move quickly to get to the ball only to hit it in another silly area, but it's more a game challenge than it is a flaw.

Hitting the ball nicely into the bricks can often cause the "Peggle Effect". If you've played the awesome PC game, you'll understand about a haywire ball and the anticipation of where it's going to end up when it's finished bouncing off things. It's all good fun though and when you get it to the final brick you'll be sweating it out to hit the ball on-target and complete the level, even more so if you're down to your last life.

Levels come with bombs and power-ups hidden within the brick structures. Striking a bomb with the ball will blow up the surrounding blocks, which is nice, especially when there are several bombs grouped together that take out almost all of the blocks in the level. Hitting a power-up sends it in your direction, but it has to touch the blade to be used. This is slightly tricky, as seeing the power-up float towards you forces you to take your mind off the actual ball. If this happens it tends to be goodbye power-up and goodbye life.

They're well worth getting though, as they can do various special things, such as increase the length of the blades or make them move faster. They can also release two extra balls to fire at the bricks (as long as you keep one in play the other two won't act as lives), they can even turn the ball into a fire ball, making it easier to pass through bricks. A certain power can also make the ball stick to the blade, enabling you to readjust your position in safety. The power-ups are extremely worthwhile and add more depth and variety to the game play, just don't risk a life trying to get one.

You start with 4 lives, but due to the fact these can be lost very quickly and very easily, the game comes with unlimited continues. So if you die on level eight, you can keep trying it without having to start from scratch each time. Unfortunately, if you are gunning for the high score, you'll need to keep these lives intact, as continuing means restarting from 0.

Sure the game is fairly tough, but when you master the very basic controls you'll be eager to keep at it. Progress through 8 stages on each planet to reach the end level boss, which consist of the same challenge, adding variety to the space-themed back drops and alien brick structure destroying. There are 50 levels in total and that equals many hours of playing time.

It's Pong meets Breakout with an essence of Peggle and if you've ever played any of these games before, then you know haw stupidly addictive they can be. If not, then rest assured, Absolute Twin Blades is equally as addictive and although it can credit its existence to its predecessors, it's still very much a great game that holds its own in the mobile games market. Ask me in ten years time if I think it's a classic, and if I remember it, then surely it is.