The NSO service updated earlier this week, revealing a distinct theme to Nintendo diehards – the three new titles added to the Game Boy library were all launch titles for the monochromatic marvel, launching 1989 in Japan and the US, with Europe trailing behind in 1990.
Glancing over reviews from ‘90s gaming critics, via Moby Games, another pattern soon emerges. Alleyway was scorned by the press, with many review scores barely passing the 50% mark and some in the 30% range. It’s rare to see a Nintendo published title fare so poorly with critics, especially a launch game intended to show off new hardware. What happened here?
For the uninformed, Alleyway was Nintendo’s take on the classic brick breaking Breakout/Arkanoid formula, first established by Atari way back in 1976. There’s some sound logic towards releasing a new iteration alongside the Game Boy. This was probably easy to program, being no more demanding than a launch period NES title; with the NES long in the tooth by this point. It also gave the handheld an arcade-style experience at launch, and the bite-sized nature of its challenges are ideal for a five minute blast. Nintendo was also able to effortlessly inject Super Mario into the proceedings, with the portly plumber piloting the bat and some stages featuring Super Mario Bros. iconography. Brand recognition goes a long way.
While there’s logic to the game’s existence, there are also a few counterpoints. If you buy into new hardware, you’re likely going to be expecting fresh experiences – even if that platform is a handheld. Alleyway was a mere retread of one of the oldest gaming experiences imaginable, and it’s likely most critics had already played a dozen games like it throughout their careers. It wasn’t an experience that had moved with the times either, failing to offer power-ups and the general excitement found in Taito’s superior Arkanoid. Most critics claimed that it was downright boring. In fact, fellow launch game Baseball was better received.
Initially, I thought critics may have had issues with screen blur – both the bat and ball move rapidly across the screen, and fast moving sprites were never the Game Boy’s forte – but none of the reviews mention this. It has been said that Game Boy screens deteriorate over time, so a minty fresh system may not have had noticeable problems. One handheld that suffered badly from blurring was the Watara Supervision, which launched with its own Breakout clone, Crystball, in 1992. Arriving three years after Alleyway, it actually scored lower than 30% in one publication. Yes, critics hated Crystball even more.
Going back to Alleyway today, it’s possible to see where ‘90s critics were coming from. This is a curiously sedate experience – most of the time it’s possible to merely nudge the bat a few pixels to the left or right to return a volley. It does have some gimmicks though, such as a shrinking bat – so while there are no power-ups, there are power-downs. 30% review scores seem harsh (Eurogamer even gave the 3DS re-release a 1/10 back in 2011) for something that’s merely on the dull side. That said, this wasn’t worth £30 in 1990 considering you could probably buy a second-hand Atari 2600 with a carrier bag full of games for the same price. And one of those would almost certainly be a dusty copy of Breakout.