Arkanoid and Breakout might have been the inspiration for Shatter, but they are so far down the family tree that the only recognizable trait in common is the brick busting. One might be more accurate in saying that Shatter, by Sidhe and available through Steam, is related to Hyperballoid and it is related to those titles.
Shatter is, if you haven’t guessed, a brick buster. You’ve got a ball, a bat and massive amounts of bricks to bust into oblivion. Along the way you’ll need to collect powerups and fragments (the bits the blocks break into) so that you can supercharge your bat and activate a shard storm (like rapid gunfire) to clear those bricks in short order.
The game offers several varieties of levels, square, round, oblong, vertical, horizontal as well as several types of bricks to break into bits. All in all, for a brick-breaker it’s not too shabby in regards to variety. At the end of each world you’ve also got a boss battle which adds a bit more flavor to the game.
Shatter also incorporates something
we saw in Plasma Pong where you can attract or repel pieces of the game board with your bat. Also in the game are several powerups that can affect how the ball moves and damage it does. The Maneuverable being the most notable which gives you the ability to control where the ball goes via the attract/repel power (termed suck and blow in the game). You also have a shield to protect yourself from errant blocks that might run into your bat and knock you off course for a moment. Other power ups include a 2x multiplier, a 1Up, and unstoppable (your ball goes through bricks as it destroys them).
You can also control how many balls you have in play on the field. If you’re confident of yourself you can use as many as you have lives stockpiled meaning you could have a pretty hectic level if you have five or more bouncing around. At times it’s useful, when there are few blocks and you want to clear them quickly.
