Alleyway
Game by Nintendo (Intelligent Designs)
Reviewed by Philip Wesley
Save: None
Released: 1989
Works with: All Game Boy units excluding Game Boy Micro.
Quick Opinion: Depends on the price...

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Opening Snide Remarks: A long time ago, in a world where video games had not
truly been born yet; Allan Alcorn sweated over schematics from Computer
Space. Nolan Busnell had handed him these schematics in an effort to help
Allan create what would eventually become known as PONG.

Then Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow decided to make a "Single Player PONG"
game. They put Allan Alcorn in charge of the production and Allan hired a 
"promising" young developer named Steve Jobs to design the prototype. He
offered Steve Jobs (Yeah. THAT Steve Jobs.) $750 for the prototype and an
extra $100 per chip removed from the original 92 chip design. Steve Jobs,
being a lazy jerk, passed it on to his buddy Steve Wozniak (THAT Steve
Wozniak) and offered to split the $750 with him. Steve Jobs did not mention
the chip removal bonus. Wozniak worked for about four days straight to meet
Alcorn's deadline and cut the chip count to about 42, netting Steve Jobs a
cool $5,000 that Wozniak never recieved a penny of. The design was a bit too
compact for Alcorn's needs so a further revamp of the board was done at
Atari which eventually became BREAKOUT.

BREAKOUT inspired several similar titles like Arkanoid and Block Breaker.

None of what has been said before has anything to do with Alleyway except
for the fact that Alleyway is considered a "Breakout Clone."

I also have a bizzare, possibly abusive, relationship with Alleyway. I was
dreading the "re-review" of this title because it meant that I would have
to play it again. Then I played it for the review and well.....

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Gameplay Description: Alleyway is pretty simple actually. There are four
kinds of bricks on the screen and you control a little paddle on the bottom
of the screen. You need to launch a ball at the bricks to destroy the bricks.
When the ball hits a brick, it bounces back toward the bottom of the screen.
If the ball hits the bottom of the screen, you lose a life. You can prevent
this from happening by bouncing the ball off of the paddle before the ball
hits the bottom of the screen. Think of it like Ping Pong or Tennis. There
are four kinds of blocks: White, Gray, Black, and Indestructible. When the
ball hits a Gray or Black block, it gains speed. When the ball hits a White
or Indestructible block, it loses speed. The ball bounces around at only a
few specific angles and gains momentum in some instances to avoid being
trapped in an infinite loop.

There are four kinds of levels in the game. The first level is just a
pattern of blocks, the second level is (usually) the same pattern but
moving from left to right or right to left. The third level has the blocks
advance forward, after a random number of paddle bounces, until the blocks
disappear. The fourth level is a "bonus" stage where the ball does not
bounce back from hitting blocks. In a bonus stage, the blocks are arranged
like characters from Super Mario Bros. and a time limit is added to the
mix.

Starting from the fourth level onward, the game penalizes you by shrinking
your paddle once when the ball hits the TOP of the playfield. The addition
of extra patterns in the "advancing" stage are also thrown into the mix.

You play the game for points and it restarts after the 24th level and bonus
stage. The problem with gameplay on Alleyway stems from the presentation
of the title. I feel a bit drowsy when I play Alleyway. It is a fun game,
but something about the presentation makes it become a drowsy and tedious
task to complete.

Liked: A classic time wasting style of gameplay that has a decent amount of
variety and a nice Super Mario Bros. theme to it.

Hated: Much more difficult to play on older units than on newer ones. The
gameplay becomes tedious and sleep inducing; because of the presentation.

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Graphics Description: "Simple and clean is the way that you're making me
feel tonight. It's hard to let it go... Hold me, whatever lies beyond this
morning, Is a little later on. Regardless of warnings, The future doesn't
scare me at all. Nothing's like before." - Hikaru Utada (Simple and Clean)

What do the less than poetic lyrics of the most over-blown pop star this
side of Megumi Hiyashibara have to do with the graphics of Alleyway?

Well, the graphics in Alleyway spare no excess detail. The bricks, play
field, score display, and paddle are easy to see and free of any sort of
clutter. The only graphical flourishes in the game are Mario jumping into
or out of the paddle. There is a small mushroom cloud when you lose a ball
and the brick patterns that resemble Mario, Bowser, and other Super Mario
Bros. enemies are exactly like their pixelized counterparts. The entire
graphic design of Alleyway is sterile. You could say it is very simple and
clean in this aesthetic. The entire presentation is minimalist at best.
This feels like it was done with the motive of making it a lot easier to
see the ball and it sort of helps the game.

The ball is hard to see on the original Game Boy and still a bit of a pain
on the Game Boy Pocket. Other versions of the Game Boy (Color/Advance) and
the Super Game Boy or Game Boy Player fix this problem.

The real problem with simplicity is that the game becomes visually very
dull when there are very few blocks left on screen. Sometimes it can take
a while to get those last few blocks and this becomes frustrating. There is
no visual incentive for playing at that moment and the game becomes more of
a chore to get to the next level.

Liked: Sweetly simple design with touches of class.

Hated: "If you ain't dirrty, you ain't here to party." - Redman in the
Christina Aguilera song "Dirrty"

Really, some type of visual incentives would have gone a long way in this
title. Maybe some sort of fireworks per level? Maybe the last block could
have exploded or something when I hit it? Some type of variation that made
it more "complex and dirty" to counter act the "simple and clean" boredom
that sets in as the game progresses.

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Sound/Music Description: The music that is there is fairly well done and
interesting. Sadly, the main levels are SILENT aside from a few sound
effects. The ball makes different pitched sounds when it hits certain items.
The advancement sound is actually quite tense and serves to wake you up
when it happens. The game sounds dull and the melodic DINGS and PLINKS will
put anyone listening to you play into a deep slumber after a while.

The only time the game sounds exciting is when you get a platform that
allows for the ball to be "trapped" between layers of blocks temporarily.
The rapid fire "PLINK DING CHIME" sounds give you a temporary boost of sheer
joy for the brief and fleeting moment of their rapturous refrain.

Then the game eventually becomes dull sounding again. The tones start to
grate on your nerves after a few seconds and the volume ends up being turned
off.

Liked: The music and those fleeting moments of PLINKY CHIME DING soundgasms.

Hated: PLINK -wait a few seconds- BOP -wait a few seconds- PLINK -wait a
few MORE seconds- BOP. Wash, rinse, repeat the sad cycle of PLINK and BOP.

The Sad Cycle of PLINK and BOP would make a sweet band name; but it does
not make a game very much fun.

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Play Control/Game Design: You can increase or decrease the speed at which
your paddle moves by holding the A or B button while moving your paddle.

That would be the jist of the play control, thank you for reading about it!

As for game design? Some concepts require you to be pretty horrible to mess
them up. Alleyway gets a lot of things right, but lacks "emotion" in the way
that the game is presented. This lack of "emotion" is shown by the overly
simplistic manner of the graphic and sound design. Graphics are not the
deciding factor of what makes a game good; but they are one of the deciding
factors of what makes a game fun.

Alleyway is a good game, but it soon becomes a very boring game through the
fault of the art and music design.

Liked: Easy to control and -from a technical standpoint- a well made title.

Hated: Ease of control, reasonable gameplay, and simplicity are mired by
boring visuals, irritating audio, and an overall lack of style.

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Improve: Inject some style into this game.

RIYL: Time waster games. Nab some headphones and music to play, and you will
have a much more enjoyable time with this title.

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Final Words: Alleyway has some bad flaws in its style that hurt my feelings
when I play it. I feel like the game was rushed and done with nary a thought
to how a video gamer may feel. When many people play video games, they play
to be amused or waste time. Some games are very good at making that wasted
time not feel like wasted time.

Alleyway makes me feel like I have wasted my time and not achieved any
entertainment value for that expense.

The problem is that the times where I feel like the game is fun are too few
and far between. When those moments happen, Alleyway is pretty awesome and
completely worth the $8 I spent on it. The catch 22 is that those moments
are rare.

My love and hate relationship with Alleyway still continues to this day. I
have put a lot of hours into this title and I still have mixed feelings
about the worth of that investment.

If you can get it cheap, I actually recommend entering this abusive
relationship. This game can teach you patience and to appreciate modern
game design.

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Score
Gameplay: ***
Graphics: **
Sound/Music: **
Play Control/Game Design: ***
Value: ****

Star Total: 42

Personal Opinion Merit: 17


Final Score: 59%

Letter Grade: D

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