Hydravision's BrickBreaker is an excellent clone of the classic Breakout. It does exactly what is says on the tin. It's basically just you against a pile of static bricks (with each level presenting you with a new formation of bricks to be broken). This is good news if you like the original, pure, classic Breakout gameplay and are tired of all the 'updated' clones which aren't true to the old one.
As mentioned above the gameplay in BrickBreaker is clean without being too bloated and filled up with extravaganza such as too many 'wow-look-at-me' power-ups and other needless features that take away from the original simple style. As far as I can recall, BrickBreaker contains of less than 10 different power-ups with the green-coloured being 'the good guys' and the orange ones being 'bad'. Among the good power-ups you'll find rocket launchers (which can be used to shoot down bricks one by one), extra balls, extra lives, and pad glue. The orange (bad) power-ups will make either your pad or ball(s) shrink.
BrickBreaker consists of two different game modes; the 'Classic Mode' and 'Dual Paddle Mode'. Classic mode is the one we know as the normal version with one pad located at the bottom of the screen whereas the Dual Paddle Mode has an extra pad located at the top. The Dual Paddle mode works a little like Pong where you need to use both pads in order to keep the ball alive until all bricks on each level are gone. This mode is fairly trickier to play than 'Classic Mode'.
Graphics-wise the game looks neat with a nice, simple uncluttered layout and user interface. I especially really dig those beautiful retro looking bricks and the game's entire colour scheme. The background (albeit static) is pleasant to look at too and further more it doesn't distract from the most important thing; the gameplay. The musical element of the game can best be described as an ambient Latin-Jazz melody I think. it's quite a catchy tune without being annoying even after a (long) while of playing. The sound effects are appropriate too without over-doing it.
There are two control schemes in the game and both work fine. You can either move the pad by using left/right on the D-pad or you can choose to use the shoulder buttons (L1 + R1) instead if that works better for you. Personally, I would have liked to have the extra option to use left D-pad + 'O' face button, but the other two methods are still sufficient enough.
I only have a couple of issues with the game, one minor being the game clock. There's a clock running next to the game showing the elapsed game time, but it has no effect on the high scoring whatsoever thus making its appearance absolutely redundant. It would have been a nice feature to implement the total game time in each high score. The other issue is a little more severe and has to do with the lack of pad sensitivity in certain situations. When the ball for instance slightly bounces from left to right sometimes it can be very hard to change the ball's direction back to where it came from. It really doesn't ruin the over-all gaming experience that much though (depending on your patience, or lack thereof, of course), but it's still a minor gripe I have with the game. The pad sensitivity is certainly something that should and could have been better adjusted. Without these issues the game would have been pretty much perfect for what it set out to be and I'm hoping Hydravision will improve on this in an (hopefully) upcoming update. It's still a fun, enthralling game, however, if you like this kind of genre.
In short, not too many bells and whistles in BrickBreaker - the pure gameplay speaks for itself and does it well. BrickBreaker is currently less than 3 euros on the PSN Store and worth every cent. Highly recommended. 7/10