Neon Dimension

Looks like I get to write the first English review for Neon Dimension, which is a simple asset-flip/mobile tier Arkanoid/Breakout ripoff, only they somehow managed to have even worse graphics. They chose a very lazy retro neon background and instead of bothering with any art for the bricks, they just have numbers.

I never saw such laziness. On top of the lazy art department, the gameplay is really poor quality stuff, not even close to as good as Breakout. But wait, it gets worse, they want a laughable $10 USD for this lazy bundle worsening shovelware. Impossible to recommend.

I was very disappointed in this breakout game.

Reasons:

1) ... The ball only ever 'reflects' off the bat, so there's little control of the ball w.r.t. aiming the ball. Most breakouts have different regions of the bat, that causes the ball to reflect at a different angle.

2) ... No drop down power ups

3) ... Ball is way too slow

4) ... The ball rarely changes it's angle of reflection. making the last few bricks hard to destroy

5) ... What power ups are present (later in the levels) are weak and there aren't that many of them

The first few levels give you a heart shaped power up that gives you an extra life up to a maximum of 5 lives. Later levels do include power ups, but they are activated immediately on hitting the brick that contains them rather than catching them on your bat. What power ups are present are very limited.

I love breakout games; they happen to be one of the first arcade games I ever played (Space Invaders and Atari's Breakout, both of which cost me a small fortune in 5 pence and 1 mark pieces when I used to visit the local arcade) and have been a firm favourite of mine ever since.

Unfortunately, I found Neon Dimension very tedious and lacked any real challenge. Granted, this is better than the original as it does have some power ups and looks reasonable enough, though I'd like to see a selection of coloured bricks rather than numbered bricks of the same colour. The ball physics is the worst I've come across in recent memory; it's basically appalling, with little deviation from a limited number of angle reflections.

For all the above reasons I cannot recommend this game unless the developer fixes some of the items I listed above.


I recommend you spend your money on Caromble, Action Ball2 (and the soon to be released original Action Ball), or DX Ball 2: Anniversary Edition, the latter two are at least fifteen years old, but are now available via Steam (and remastered). Shatter is another I highly recommend.

p.s. even when it's on sale for 89% off I wouldn't recommend this. You can find well over a hundred free breakouts better than this over on Caimans HERE (2D versions) and HERE (3D versions) . Also, I've posted details of some excellent free breakouts such as 3D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night (abandonware, requires DOSBox) ) and Breakquest (now freeware), which you'll find HERE: