Reviewed: October 18, 2007
Reviewed by: Megan Dyer

Publisher
Reflexive Entertainment

Developer
Reflexive Entertainment

Released: August 2, 2007
Genre: Arcade Shooter
Players: 1

8
7
6
10
7.9

System Requirements

There are a few new twists to the old Breakout formula, most importantly the ability to recall the ball back to the ship. This often is a vital part to the overall strategy to collecting rings instead of randomly juggling the ball and hoping it’ll hit its goal. Ricochet Infinity also boasts a wide variety of power ups and effects that mix things up a bit, such as the spaceship gaining the ability to destroy some of the obstructions on the screen by shooting lasers into them, speeding up or slowing down the movement of the ball, or the ability of the ball to shoot lasers or fireballs.

Throw in over a thousand different levels (literally) of clever layouts and the game quickly becomes a good example of how variety isn’t necessarily synonymous with gameplay complexity. Objects on screen morph and change, slide and move around the screen, drop power-ups as players attempt to keep the ball (or balls as sometimes the case may be) from falling off the screen. All in all, it’s some good old fashioned, addictive, and occasionally frustrating fun.

One of the undeniably satisfying features of Ricochet Infinity is the ability to create your own levels as well as play through other player-designed levels. There are hundreds and hundreds of these levels, obviously varying in degrees of difficulty and sophistication, but easy enough to sift through. Each one is tagged for certain categories as well as with ratings from other players, making it easy to play what appeals you personally. Cool, huh?

Since Ricochet Infinity has such simple, fairly repetitive gameplay, it’s quite important that the level styles are varied and interesting enough to keep gamers playing. Ricochet Infinity does thankfully deliver, even if some of the levels are far more obnoxious than they are fun, complete with poor design layouts, non-stop beeping and clanking noises and a frustrating lack of control over your ball. Mostly however, it’s no real trouble to take the good with the bad, especially since the good designs are far more plentiful than the bad ones.

Level designs range from simple and sparse space templates to loud, colorful, intricate and pulsating worlds, where the placement of a single block can drastically affect the difficulty. Since there are a plethora of user made designs available to play through as well, sometimes you find something really cool and sometimes, well, to put it gently, you find levels that aren’t so cool. To be fair however, designing your own levels ain’t exactly easy. Besides, each level is categorized with tags such as “colorful” and “kids” to indicate the type of level that gamers are in for, a simple system that makes looking for the type of level you want to play an easy task.

The best part of Ricochet Infinity’s overall look however, is the never-ending circus of special effects. From shooting lights all over the screen, to the spectacle of attempting to juggle a countless number of balls, to balls spinning like pinwheels spewing forth lasers like fireworks on the Fourth of July as they go, there are plenty of things happening on the screen at any given time. Variety is the name of the game in Ricochet Infinity’s design and style. Despite the dated quality of the graphics, this game never stops being fun to look at.

Thankfully, level creators are given the luxury of using their own background music with their custom levels, so if you need a break from the obnoxiously catchy song that doesn’t end (or change) in the regular gameplay, you have options. The rest of the game sounds are made up of the usual dings, bleeps, clanks and crashes that one would expect to come from a game that consists of ricocheting balls off of things and smashing bricks.