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Breakout type games are very popular. Despite being first introduced in the Atari age these games continue to be produced for every platform introduced. The SmartPhone platform is certainly no different. Mobile Stream is now offering the latest version of this popular theme.

Here is what Mobile Stream has to say about Meteor:

Meteor is an amazing Breakout remake for Palm and PocketPC devices. You have to destroy bricks, saving your meteor from enemy missiles and getting as much power-ups as possible. 90 various levels with attractive space environment make much fun for players of all ages.

Game features

• addictive game-play
  
  
• moving bricks
  
  
• attacking spaceships
  
  
• smart Hi-Res&Hi-Res+ graphics
  
  
• nice music and sounds
  
  
• dynamic power ups
  
  
• several types of balls and weapons
  
  
• cool space environments
  
  
• 90 levels total

There is also a fairly extensive tutorial here that you should at least glance at to know what the power-ups are.

Note: Screenshots in this review were produced with Microsoft's ActiveSync Remote Display. The extra box around each graphic does not appear in game.

When you start up the game you get a big surprise. The game is SIDEWAYS! That's right, you turn your phone to the side to play. Interesting.

These are the three screens available from the main menu (Options, High Scores and Help)

Selecting to Start Game from the main menu brings you to a missions screen. There are 9 missions to choose from by pressing a number key or using the control pad. Each mission has 10 boards. If you lose all of your meteors (balls) before reaching the 10th level in a particular mission you must start the mission over again. There are also three difficulty levels: easy, normal and hard.

When you select a mission the game board comes up. You see the ship (paddle) at the bottom of the screen holding on to the ball. Pressing the action button starts the game play by releasing the ball.

The object is to continue to deflect the ball when it goes towards the bottom of the screen so that it goes back up and hits bricks, making them disappear. There are several types of bricks, and not all can be destroyed. Others require being hit multiple times before going away. Powerups like bullets, missles and super missles will allow you to more easily clear a level (and they look pretty cool too). Once all bricks are cleared you move on to the next level.

This game does add an interesting twist on Breakout though. Notice the ships floating in the middle of the board? They are targets as well, and hitting them earns you more points.

The game certainly is unique in the "breakout" genre because of the sideways play. But in many respects it is a remake of the same game, and represents one of several productions for the SmartPhone. The only thing I think that could use improving is the available in-game help. Without going to the developers site there is no way to know, without trial and error, what is what in the game. The tutorial on the vendor's site does explain the power-ups and the on-screen scoring, but if I want to see that information and I am not near a computer it is pretty tough.

But the instructions really have nothing to do with game play. The play is fluid and fast, requiring pretty sharp reflexes. The ship (paddle) is pretty small so you have to really pay attention to what's going on in the game. Just a split second of inattentiveness and your ball will be lost. But collect the right powerups and you can get yourself a few permanent bricks along the bottom to help you.

If you like breakout type games then you will like Meteor as well. It has a lot of levels, all of which are challenging. It will take you some time to get good enough to play them all, so the game should keep you occupied for quite a while.

You can download a trial version here or buy it from ClickGamer