Shatter Review

The PlayStation Store was designed to, at least in part, give greater consumer access to games developed by independent studios. To date we have seen great indie games from the likes of Jonathan Mak with Everyday Shooter, creating imaginative, fun and affordable gameplay experiences for PS3 users. Sidhe is another one of these indie developers putting their foot forward on the PlayStation Store with Shatter – a game similar to Breakout that deserves a more respectful title than clone.

Funny enough the game has a story where you play as a paddle trying to make its way back home. In order to do this, though, you will have to do a lot of brick breaking and boss slaying across ten vibrantly colored worlds. The game is a visual treat with crisp graphics and an original soundtrack that should make big-time developers jealous. Basically this is a value priced game with all of the visual bells and whistles of similar retail releases at more than five times the cost.

Sidhe took the concept of Breakout and turned it upside down – or at least sideways. While the game supports traditional Breakout style play, it also has many levels that are vertical rather than horizontal. There are even a few levels that are played along a circular path. The levels themselves are well done and make great use of special blocks that will block other blocks from falling, blocks that will blow your ball away and ones that will fly around like crazy. There are even boss fights at the end of each world.

Shatter supports most of the power-ups that you expect from a game like this: double points, an invisible ball, and so on. There probably could have been more power-ups, but I won’t fault them for that. For one, they added a physics aspect where you can “suck” and “blow” the ball as well as other objects. As is expected with most modern versions of Breakout, you can fire at the blocks with your paddle if you build up enough energy in a bar and press triangle. Some blocks are resistant to these attacks, but in a lot of situations it is a life saver.

Shatter has fantastic production value, a cheap price tag and supports Trophies for those that want an easy bronze medal (or ten). Sidhe went above and beyond in their first self-published release on the PlayStation Store. Fans of Breakout games should definitely check out Shatter. I would actually recommend it for anyone that enjoys arcade-style games. You can’t ask for much more when you spend $7.99.