Shatter Review

Block-rocking bats.

Version tested: PlayStation 3

Shatter - and this is something you don't often say of download games that cost less than a fiver - has an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. For the new PSN game by GripShift creators Sidhe, Module (aka Jeremiah Ross, a New Zealand electronica artist) has put together 90 minutes of warm, fat, fuzzy bass grooves over steady disco beats and under tidal washes of space-age synth, cut through with heroic stadium-rock guitar and sprinkled in pure, unadulterated SID-chip stardust.

It's quintessentially eighties but also distinctly modern, as close to Justice as it is Harold Faltemeyer. Where other neon-edged arcade revivals try to bring the aesthetic of old videogames "up to date" with thumping psychedelic rave that barely scrapes its way into the 21st century, Sidhe and Module have come up with something that's simultaneously more nostalgic and more relevant - not to mention more human, prettier, and easier to listen to for long periods without having queasy flashbacks to lost weekends. Classy, relaxed and quietly immaculate, the Shatter soundtrack is a perfect piece of retro-futurism. And so is Shatter itself.

It's not as easy as it looks to tackle the classic designs of the very early days of videogaming and innovate around them. It's even harder to actually improve them on a basic level, but that's just what Sidhe has done with Atari's venerable Breakout - or perhaps Taito's Arkanoid, the 1986 game that perfected the form, is a better point of reference. Shatter does for the bat-and-ball block-breaker what Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved did for the twin-stick shooter, or Pac-Man Championship Edition did for the yellow-thing-running-away-from-ghosts-in-a-maze-'em-up. Well, it doesn't quite match them in one area, but we'll get to that later.

The neglected netherworld of the Breakout clone hasn't seen a distinctive update in over a decade. The last notable version was probably the 1996 shareware cult DX-Ball. Ever since, it's been languishing on mobile phones, which is where games designers put all the solid old gametypes they don't know what to do with.

'Shatter' Screenshot 1

Playing with two balls takes, well... you can fill in the rest.

Sidhe freshens the template up in all the ways you'd expect, varying the size and shape of the playing field, adding power-ups, a layered scoring system, modern physics and a proliferation of new block types with different behaviours. It also adds one major innovation you wouldn't expect and would never have thought of: the ability to suck and blow waves of air from your bat, which doesn't just affect power-ups and other collectables, but also the loose, tumbling blocks themselves and - most importantly - the ball, allowing you to bend its trajectory while it's in mid-flight.

Combined with this game-changing twist are two much more subtle, but still brilliant touches. The surface of your bat is gently curved, meaning the ball produces a different bounce depending on where you strike it. It's a much more intuitive and predictable way to give the player more control than the vague notions of spin favoured by some games of this type. Also, there's a light but very precise indicator showing where the ball will hit if it continues on its current trajectory, which is essential for controlling the flight of the ball to the fullest extent, and which doesn't make Shatter as easy as you might think.

All of this gives the player an unprecedented amount of power and flexibility in a genre that's often frustratingly random, or at least, a test of reactions rather than skill and strategy. Shatter is still a game of chance at heart, but it's one where you have the tools to turn the tables on luck every once in a while, if you think fast and play creatively.

Ignoring the attempt - so perfunctory and stupid it's almost sweet - to give this entirely abstract arcade game some kind of plot, Shatter offers 10 worlds, each a sequence of rooms culminating in a boss. The rooms are sometimes squarish, with the bat sitting traditionally at the bottom; sometimes oblong, logically using the full spread of widescreen, with the bat on the left; and sometimes circular, walled about two-thirds of the way round with the bat at the bottom. The variety keeps you on your toes, although bounces can be mind-bendingly hard to work out in the circular rooms (which is the point, surely), and it's sometimes too easy to keep the ball permanently in play in the deep horizontal rooms just by blowing it away from you.

Blocks leave clouds of shards behind, which can be sucked towards you (when this won't send the ball somewhere you don't want it to go) for a score multiplier and to charge up your power gauge. Power can be unleashed in a "shardstorm", a sort of laser barrage from your bat than can be used to clear swathes of blocks at a time. It can also be used up to shield your bat from falling blocks, important in later stages - getting hit doesn't lose lives, but it takes the bat out of play for a second which is often long enough to miss the ball, and that does lose you a life.

Blocks drop power-ups fairly frequently. 1-ups are generously plentiful: with three continues available too, progress is pretty easy in Shatter until the final two worlds, which shortens the experience a little but keeps frustration low and focuses the mind on improving performance rather than survival. There are score, shard and power multipliers too, and two simple but desirable ball power-ups. Unstoppaball cuts through most blocks rather than bouncing off them, and Manoeuvraball is much easier to steer by sucking and blowing, a real boon in boss stages. Extra balls aren't a power-up, they're a choice, released at the cost of a life, with a big benefit to score if you can keep them in play.

It's all beautifully balanced and clear. Sidhe deserves credit for keeping the power-ups simple and useful, rather than flooding the game with hit-or-miss novelties. The designers have quite rightly poured their invention into the block types and room designs instead.

'Shatter' Screenshot 2

The shards are a crafty lift of Geometry Wars 2's geoms.

There are simple blocks, blocks that explode, blocks that weaken their neighbours when hit, blocks that drop when released by the destruction of anchor blocks, blocks that shoot off like rockets, blocks that suck and blow, blocks that work like hinges and pulleys. Sidhe takes the impish invention of Taito's layouts in Arkanoid and runs with it, constructing animated Heath Robinson cascades of cause and effect, just waiting to be spun into slow-mo, low-gravity chaos by your ball. It's beautiful, and new ideas keep coming all the way through. The bosses are brilliant too, devious and delightful enough not to be spoiled here.

If Shatter slips up anywhere, it's in its scoring. There's just a bit too much going on, the rules aren't transparent or consistent enough, and since the score multiplier is linked to hits off your bat as well as shard collection, it seems to reward playing without using the game's most interesting and skilful feature - the ability to suck and blow. The fact that the multiplier resets to zero at the start of each room constantly robs Shatter of the heart-in-mouth momentum that makes for the best score attack games, and the will to compete with your friends' scores - whether in the world, mode, boss rush or bonus categories - soon ebbs away.

In the end, Shatter is an engrossing, smart, beautifully conceived and executed arcade game, but it doesn't quite have the score-racking purity of purpose that makes a Geometry Wars, Pac-Man CE or Out Run Online Arcade so endlessly compelling. Once you've beaten it, which won't take long, you'll move on - but it's a blissful spell while it lasts, an absolute steal at £4.79, and a definite feather in PSN's cap. And you can always boot it up again just to listen to the music.

8 / 10

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Comments (39) Latest comment 4 months ago

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  • NBAoz #1 3 years ago

    Fantastic game. Been playing this for about a week already and I would give it 9 out of 10. It's like a cross between Geometry Wars and DX-Ball with a great soundtrack PLUS it is very well priced!
  • samaran #2 3 years ago

    agreed entirely, this game is almost flawless. i guess the art direction could stand to be a little less bland, but what's there is clean and pretty enough so it's hardly a dealbreaker.
    Edited by 1 at 06/08/09 @ 11:20
  • Fletche #3 3 years ago

    Excellent game and for the soundtrack alone I would give it 9/10, the best original gaming music I have heard in a very, very long time. The game itself is addictive as you try to beat yours and your friends high scores for the various levels and a great game in the same way Super Stardust is, in that you can pick up, play one game, drop it and be very happy in the 45 mins or so you have just spent. Great price and a must buy really for anyone who likes arcade games that offer a genuine challenge
  • AhSoul #4 3 years ago

    2nd article today to mention 'Heath Robinson'. Perhaps Oli and Dan are really the same person (CONSPIRACY!!!!)

    From Machinarium hands-on:
    "Initially puzzles are gentle, pick-up-and-combine affairs, introducing the concept of the proximity necessary for interaction as you attempt to gain access to the Heath Robinson city where the majority of the game takes place"

    From Shatter review:
    "Sidhe takes the impish invention of Taito's layouts in Arkanoid and runs with it, constructing animated Heath Robinson cascades of cause and effect, just waiting to be spun into slow-mo, low-gravity chaos by your ball"

    Can't believe I'm sad enough to have spotted this :D
  • El-Dev #5 3 years ago

    I went for Fat Princess instead of this last week, but I think I will download this when I get from work tonight.
  • JonFE #6 3 years ago

    Is there a demo available for this?
  • JohnnyWashnGo #7 3 years ago

    Nailed it.

    Its a solid 8/10 in my mind. Great fun to play, has that 'just one more go' appeal that seems to have vanished from games these days. The price is also spot on. More like this please :)
  • Widge #8 3 years ago

  • Eighthours #9 3 years ago

    Yeah, Shatter is short but oh so very sweet. I don't think that the score mechanics are as clear or well thought out as they should have been (I don't feel the need to chase scores as I did with GW2), but I had a lovely few hours with this game and it features the best videogame music I've heard in years.
  • Stoatboy #10 3 years ago

    Shatter's a really nice game, but it's not being half as innovative as the review makes out - BreakQuest was doing a lot of this stuff years ago.

    http://www.nurium.com/
  • TOOTR #11 3 years ago

    Boo - this sounds like an awesome game but this is EXACTLY what I was going to create with my first XNA game.

    And also they thought of pretty much all the things I was going to put in (and more).

    I confess I wasn't going to include Heath Robinson elements!

    And it would remain a vertical not horizontal playing field.

    But.

    Apart from those points. And the fact that I haven't even downloaded XNA to my pc yet or even learned a scrap of C#.

    EXACTLY the same!

    Is there a Mind IP lawyer I can contact?

    Is this likely to come out on 360?

    And is it just me or are arkanoid, breakout games etc much better played for accuracy with a rotary dial or best of all... a keyboard?

  • Chufty #12 3 years ago

    Yeah so what is with that Heath Robinson thing?

    The game sounds great, I'll have to buy this when I get home.

    Good review Oli, thanks.
  • dominalien #13 3 years ago

    @TOOTR

    I liked playing an arcanoid-type game on my palm with a stylus. Very precise.
    Edited by 1 at 06/08/09 @ 13:10
  • Arwin #14 3 years ago

    Yeah, great game. Good review also. Few nitpicks:

    'The fact that the multiplier resets to zero at the start of each room constantly robs Shatter of the heart-in-mouth momentum that makes for the best score attack games, and the will to compete with your friends' scores - whether in the world, mode, boss rush or bonus categories - soon ebbs away."

    Actually the multiplier is irrelevant in boss rush mode, which is primarily about time, and bonus mode (score not dependent on multiplier).

    Apart from that, I don't quite agree on the criticism of how the high scores work. I hate high-scores that purely depend on not dying / keeping the multiplier going forever. Instead, this game is all about the ability to launch any of your balls whenever you want. So if you have four lives, you can have all four of them in play at once. This is definitely something that the game also rewards, because you get more 1up powerups when you've got less than 2 lives, so you can take this gamble. The high-scores also show clearly that there's plenty of room to improve your scores - when I beat the game with one continue (which wasn't too hard fortunately, managed it first try with a few close calls) I scored 260 million, but the highest scores were well over 400 million back then (first weekend after launch).

    There are a few not as obvious things in the game as well not mentioned here - you can for instance use a shield, and if a shard touches it, it will shoot away like a little laser/fiery projectile. If you attract shards while having the shield up you can have some nice fireworks. Also you can apparently (haven't managed it yet I think) get a super-ball if you launch another ball at the exact moment you bat away an existing ball.

    Finally, the quality of the bosses deserves more attention - so very few games get that right, and I quite enjoy the bosses here.

    If I would have any criticism its maybe that technically it's not that exciting compared to some games, and ditto the presentation. Music and gameplay make up for that plenty though. Still, it's made with PhyreEngine presumably also with the intent to be multi-platform later on (Gripshift went on to other platforms as well at some point).

    Oh, and the load-screens, albeit very short, are slightly annoying - you don't expect to have to see them if you do a restart of the same level for instance, but this has partly to do with how it resets the physics. Sidhe seem to think they can do better though and are workign on a patch already to shave off those small imperfections.

    As for the score, 8 or 9, fine with me - at the price it's definitely a steal.
    Edited by 1 at 06/08/09 @ 12:30
  • Zebula77 #15 3 years ago

    Cheap and very well done game, this. Fun to play, great music and addictive. Strong 8 in my book. Good review, too.
  • el_pollo_diablo #16 3 years ago

    The general standard of PSN exclusives keeps on getting higher and higher!
  • Pro_Gamer #17 3 years ago

    OMGZ TEH POWER OF TEH BLURAYEZ!?!!

    LOL it had to be said ;)
  • Number1Laing #18 3 years ago

    Pixeljunk Eden also has a fantastic soundtrack - I put that on a lot. Good study music.
  • dominalien #19 3 years ago

    The soundtrack is more expensive than the game!

    Still, having listened to it for a bit just now, I bought it.

    I won't buy the game. I don't need another game I feel guilty about not having time to play and finish ;-) But the music will be very welcome for those long car trips I keep making for some reason.
  • Godhather08 #20 3 years ago

    @justanotherdave

    Nah, I have both and while Shatter is great so is Fat Princess. I've played through Shatter and though it rocked pretty good, but it won't keep you busy for as long as Fat Princess will, at least that's how it was for me. I'd rate both Fat Princess and Shatter with 8 or 9 out of 10. Both are great PSN games.
  • Doctor_What #21 3 years ago

    Great game, perfect price.

    This shall be added to my list of games that support my Campaign For More Techno And Electronica In Game Soundtracks. Twenty years ago, everything had to be chip music, ten years ago the CD-based games got to the point where streamed music meant we could have thrash guitars and orchestras everywhere, and it seems that audio designers forgot the pleasure of the simple 'bleep'. This is a sad thing, and should be rectified!
  • SeesThroughAll #22 3 years ago

    In the end, Shatter is an engrossing, smart, beautifully conceived and executed arcade game, but it doesn't quite have the score-racking purity of purpose that makes a Geometry Wars, Pac-Man CE or Out Run Online Arcade so endlessly compelling

    I disagree. If you focus on your friend list top scores, it will find that High Score Holy Grail so many other games also have.
  • Yodzilla #23 3 years ago

    yeah this game is fantastic for high score chasers. i'm not quite sure why the reviewer didn't get it
  • BinaryBob101 #24 3 years ago

    Sadly, I don't own a PS3 otherwise this would be bought instantly. However, I've given the soundtrack a listen and it's bloody great. If you don;t have the game I do advise downloading it now. GO DO IT! :)
  • TriggerHippie #25 3 years ago

    @ Chufty

    Its what the Americans refer to as a Rube Goldberg :p
  • busboy33 #26 3 years ago

    So, given Teh EG Bias, does that mean this game is actually a 13 or a 14?

    I kid, I kid.
  • VandelayIndustries #27 3 years ago

    "is it better than pj eden as a visual/audio artsy game?"

    I think Eden edges it slightly in that regard, but Shatter is an excellent game. Well worth a go for the price.
    Edited by 1 at 06/08/09 @ 15:22
  • Cadence #28 3 years ago

    The soundtrack really is incredibly good!
  • Hypocee #29 3 years ago

    No argument on the price or the music or the goodness, but the claims of revolution do rub me the wrong way. It has the 'revolutionary' features of BreakQuest (2005, best Arkanoid on the market I know of); before that most of them were in Ricochet Lost Worlds (2004). That's not exactly 1996, nor is it 2008, and I don't even follow the genre that closely; I'm sure I've missed the games that actually pioneered them.
  • TOOTR #30 3 years ago

    You can stream the soundtrack (or buy it) from the main site.

    It is, indeed, a top tunefest.
  • hahayou #31 3 years ago

    Plasma Pong did the suck-and-blow thing already too, although that was really more of a tech demo.
  • Hypocee #32 3 years ago

    I love remakes, I love clones, I love incremental improvement. I don't like when a review claims revolutionary status for features that have been around for at least four or five years.
  • 3william56 #33 3 years ago

    Great game all round, and another score for the PSN.

    My personal gripes were firstly that it doesn't use much of the screen - in circular and vertical modes it uses barely half the area of a widescreen telly - even horizontal it has huge wasted areas given over to scores and HUD. Second was that the number of bricks is very small, making each round too short - some can be cleared in a single shard blast. I'd have liked full screen, and hundreds of smaller blocks, to up the precision required with the suck and blow (which is brilliant). Would also have suggested the suck and blow have a finite time (say with recharge) - it's far too easy to jam down the blow, and hardly ever have to bat the ball. There's also the usual problem of losing the ball in the fireworks, but that's to be expected.

    But it is still a mighty fine piece of Retro Evolved magnificence, and a great warm up before Wipeout.
  • GreyBeard #34 3 years ago

    More than worth the money for just the soundtrack alone.

    The game itself is really damn good too.

    10/10

    Believe!
  • login_name #35 3 years ago

    I'm gonna have to jump on the excellent sound track bandwagon. These are some of the best gaming tunes I've heard in a long time. Makes me nostalgic for the old days of limited hardware but talented composers. Seems most soundtracks these days are licensed afterthoughts or generic tosh created just to fill the silence.
  • darkmuse #36 3 years ago

    It does sound great, but reviewers should probably do a little homework before claiming its so revolutionary.
    Breakquest and Nervous brickdown are okay, but try http://www.alphabounce.co m/ for the best idea of the genre I've come across recently.
  • fanpages #37 3 years ago

    FYI: An exclusive interview at 1upGamers.com:

    "Interview - Sidhe Talk Candidly About Shatter™"

    BFN,

    fp.

    Edited by 1 at 17/08/09 @ 23:57
  • larrybean #38 4 months ago

    This the way you just did.I'm really impressed that there's so much about this game that's been uncovered and you did it so well, with so much class.Good one you, man! Really great stuff here. I really wanted to learn about this eversince I was working in a <a style="color: #000000;" href="http://www.gkgasia.com&qu ot;>screen printing</a> company.
    Edited by 1 at 04/10/11 @ 04:03
  • captain_k #39 4 months ago

    I can't wait to buy this next month. Hope they will also offer discounts to those who are old gamer of this software. I really wanted to play this game. I am an <a style="color: #000000;" href="http://jpconcept.com/" >Interior Designer</a> but hell yeah, i love computer games.
    Edited by 1 at 04/10/11 @ 04:02