Unoriginal ball-and-bat game
Super Blast 3 is another curious little oddity from the imagination of indie developer Steve Moraff, and follows in the footsteps of Moraff's Revenge, Moraff's World and of course its own predecessors, the Super Blast games. Instead of tackling the RPG or strategy genres, as in his previous releases, this is a collection of Arkanoid or Breakout-style games which feature Moraff's favoured brand of eye-popping visuals and vibrant colours. Three modes of gameplay are on display here, all of which are broadly similar and in classic ball-and-bat fashion, involve smacking a ball off a paddle at the bottom of a screen and knocking out the various bricks which populate the screen. There are slight variations between each mode, with for example the adventure mode requiring players to reveal a gateway to the next level. As is usual in such games, a variety of power-ups are available, including slow balls, split balls, and sticky paddle while the blocks themselves also come in various flavours to add to the challenge. Moraff's games tend to be a bit hit-and-miss, sometimes taking traditional genres and adding something interesting to them and at other times, simply copying what has gone before with little in the way of innovation. Super Blast 3 definitely falls into the latter category and while it provides a reasonable amount of undemanding fun, it really doesn't add anything to the genre that Arkanoid 2 or Batty don't do better. Graphics and sound are crude and amateurish, but controls are responsive enough, just don't expect the game to set your world on fire.
