Breakout is boring. Even when I all I had was a second-hand Atari and no other games that the dog hadn’t eaten, Breakout bored me to tears. I’ve never quite understood that fascination with this game, or why it seems to spawn so many clones. In fact, this shaky, cockeyed video of the arcade version is the best one I could find.
See, in Breakout you control a paddle at the bottom of the screen. Your goal is to bounce a ball against the wall of bricks at the top of the screen. Hitting a brick will make it disappear, make them all disappear and you win. Your only method of control is sliding a paddle across the bottom of the screen, bouncing the ball back into play. Allow the ball to fall off the bottom of the screen 3 times, and you lose. Then you get to go play a better game.