0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Blockids

    

Blockids is a Breakout style action arcade paddle game developed and published by Athena when it released in Japan on the 23^rd of February 1996. It would be seven years before the game would see a re release, with a North America release coming on the 4^th of August 2003 with Natsume publishing the game.

Pal regions would also get a release of the game on the 1^st of May 2004, the game was published by Zoo Digital Publishing. In addition to the games release on the original Playstation the game would also release on the Playstation Network in 2010 on the Playstation 3 and PSP. Two years later on the 29^th of August 2012 the game would also receive a PSVita release in PAL regions, again via the PSN network.

Unlike the recently covered Block Buster, this game while being a part of the Breakout style of games switches from the usual 2D look and opts for a 3D view of the block breaking action, with the game having a top down isometric view, the game also offers a behind the paddle view.

 

The game features two modes of play, the first is Adventure Mode, this mode has the player choosing one of the six available characters and going on block breaking missions to reclaim five magic crystals. In order to do this the player must beat a series of stages and boss creatures, the boss creatures will appear on every 10^th stage.

Like the many games in the Breakout genre of paddle games the aim is to bounce a ball off of a paddle at the bottom of the screen and break the blocks. These blocks will appear in different formations and will require the player to change their approach in order to break them all.

 

The characters in the game have a power meter which is filled by hitting several blocks in succession in on shot, this power meter allows the player to unleash a special power. Some of these powers include Super Extend which elongates the paddle, Ball Catcher which makes the ball stick to the paddle rather than bouncing off and Power Ball, this special power makes the ball go straight through the blocks rather than just bouncing off of them. The player beings with just 2 lives and 3 continues before it is game over

When you break the blocks sometimes a power up will be dropped by the block, these power ups include slowing and speeding up of the ball, a 1up which gives the player a valuable extra life, as well as a power up that will clear the entire stage.

 

The second mode is called Challenge Mode, this mode works very similar to the Adventure Mode, but unlike the Adventure mode that gives you only a limited number of lives and continues. Challenge Mode allows for infinite continues as you play through the games 100 stages. Progression through the game as well as high score stats can be saved to your memory card, the game also had mouse support for more precision slider movement.

The various stages work as a kind of fortress that you must breach, see the gameplay video arranged, with the blocks arranged almost like wall, especially when the player has the ability to make the ball jump in order to hit higher placed blocks, the player can jump the ball by hitting the X button on the controller. Other controls for the game are pretty basic, with left and right on the D-Pad used to move your paddle, the select button will change your camera view.

This game being an early release in Japan and a late release in the Playstations lifecycle in North America and Europe as a result critic reviews for the game are none existent. So we will head over to GameFAQs for their user ratings of the game, here we find the game currently sitting at an average user rating of 3.30/5.

Taking a closer look at the user ratings we find one user rated the game at an average as you can get 2.5, two more users rated the game at a 3/5 while the last remaining two users rated the game pretty highly at a 4.5.5. we next move on to the games difficulty level.

Here again we find the total number of users rating this category at five, one of these users found Blockids to be on the easy side, while the largest majority of users found the game to have just the right difficulty level. 

The final user on the other hand found the game to be tough, averaging out the game comes in at a just right difficulty level. Lastly we have the games overall lifespan, here we find just three users rating this category, and we find a unanimous decision between the three with the game having an average game lifespan of 12 hours.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where if you are looking to trade in your copy of Blockids to Gamedude, you will be looking at just 25 cents for your copy of the game. If on the other hand you are looking to buy a copy from Gamedude, you will be looking at an outlay of just $3 for a copy.

 

Moving on to Retrogames.co.uk where we find the game is not available or even listed, so we will quickly move on to eStarland.com. where we find the North America version of the game listed, but currently is out stock. The game when in stock has a usual price of between $7.48 and $14.95.

Also on offer at eStarland.com is a trade in for the game, with eStarland offering up to $7 for a complete copy of the game. This price will vary depending on the completeness of the copy you are trading in, a disc only copy of the game is worth just $2.10 at trade in.

 

Lastly we head to Amazon.com where we don’t find the game listed at all, as a result we will head over to the co.uk version of the site to see if we can find any copies there. We do strike lucky here finding just a handful of copies of the PAL version of the game available.

This version will only work on a PAL console, so Japanese and North American consoles will not play this version. Moving on to the copies that are available, we find a very good condition copy first up for £6.24, this copy however does not state the games completeness.

The same goes for the next two copies on offer, both of these are in very good condition as well and are price at £9.88 and both come with free shipping. The first of these copies though is shipped by Amazon, so the free shipping only applies to those with Prime membership or those spending over £20.

The next copy on offer is another very good condition copy for £11.02, this copy does state that It comes complete with disc, case, manual and covers. Also on offer is a new copy of the game, this new copy is not price that much above the last copy, coming in at £14.06.

As is the usual case on Amazon we do find that overpriced copy on offer, this time it is a like new condition copy of the game, this copy has also been professionally cleaned and can be picked up for an overpriced £53.80. On the plus side it does come with free shipping which makes all the difference.

Written by

P J Gibbon