Alleyway (Game Boy) Review

I feel some classic game concepts haven’t really stood up to the test of time very well. Whereas your Maze games or SHMUPs from the classic 8-bit days still have something of a charm to them, the old Breakout, block breaking style of gameplay really hasn’t aged all that well. Which is why a game such as Alleyway, which may have been somewhat fun to play back in 1989 just for the fact that it was on a portable system, really is not all that great 22 years on.

Alleyway was one of the games released alongside the original Game Boy for its launch back in 1989 and I can imagine back in 1989 the thought of playing a Breakout clone on the go would have been somewhat appealing. Unfortunately for Alleyway things are different in 2011 and gamers do ask a lot more from their games. Gameplay in Alleyway is about as basic as it gets. You control your paddle down at the bottom of the screen and must bounce a ball off it to destroy blocks at the top of the screen. If the ball misses your paddle, you lose a life. Lose 3 lives and it’s game over. Each stage offers a slightly different arrangement of blocks and on the odd occasion, a new twist on the gameplay such as moving blocks or the screen moving down slowly but other then that, there’s not much more to it. It doesn’t try to reinvent the genre or add anything overly different and it’s only a few steps up for the primitiveness of gameplay that was found in Pong.

The graphics and sound pretty much match the gameplay in that they too are completely bland and devoid of anything greatly interesting. Barring the music found in a few bonus stages, all you’re going to hear in the game is the sound of the ball bouncing off a paddle, something which I’m sure could be construed as some obscure kind of torture after prolonged exposure. Graphically, the game does little to excite as well, no background, just blocks and a ball. Ocasionally the blocks will be arranged in a somewhat interesting pattern such as 8-bit Mario or a Koopa Troopa but those are rare, most of the time the blocks are just arranged in the most plain looking formations.

And that’s pretty much all there is to Alleyway. It’s a shame it didn’t take a few of the tricks from some of the other Breakout clones from the 80’s like the power ups found in Arkanoid. It just needed something else to add to the game and really break up the tedium of it all. I spent roughly half an hour with the game, and that really was 20 minutes more than I needed to. There’s nothing to Alleyway and out of the 3 launch titles for the eShop Virtual Console, it’s easily the worst. If you do want to check out some classic brick breaking action on the go there are plenty of other choices available on the eShop, such as the amazing Alphabounce which this reviewer highly recommends.

I’m a retro game junkie and even I wouldn’t look at this game again. It’s shame they didn’t try and at least be somewhat interesting and bring the Nintendo magic to the genre like they did with Kirby’s Block Ball several years later.

In 1989 as a launch game for the first real portable gaming system, this game would have been fine. 22 years later it just feels bland and devoid of anything redeeming. There are much better games on the eShop you can spend your time and money on.