The concept is incredibly simple, you just move your paddle (officially referred to as a VAUS) across the bottom of the screen, deflecting a small ball towards the top where it will break apart a series of multi-colored bricks, and then bounce back towards you to repeat the step over again. Each brick is worth a different amount of points depending on the color, and you can only advance to the next stage by clearing the current one of all bricks.

Easy enough, right? Well, for the most part you're correct. Early on the brick patterns are pretty simple and forgiving, with plenty of wiggle room for your ball to make its way in between the bricks, typically bouncing back and forth, taking out multiple bricks in one pass. However, as you advance to the later rounds you'll come across some bricks that take two hits to destroy, and eventually you come across bricks that can't be destroyed or penetrated in any way. By the end of the rounds the patterns will be almost unforgiving, making it more and more crucial to get a handle on the actual physics in play when it comes to hitting the ball at certain angles with the VAUS, and figuring out what section of the wall you need to bounce off of to get into the brick formation and cause some damage.

Just like Space Invaders Extreme, being released by Taito and Square Enix at the same time as this title (and at the same price point), Arkanoid DS is a decent attempt at reviving a very classic series. However, the action of Arkanoid isn't nearly as fast paced or forgiving as Space Invaders tends to be, with some of the later levels being frustrating at best. Also, there's not much going on with the visuals in Arkanoid, with the majority of the play area being pretty stationary, so the game definitely isn't as entertaining to watch for extended periods of time. And while the game is definitely score based, there aren't nearly as many options or tricks available for increasing that score, you simply clear every level, rinse and repeat.

Just like Invaders, Arkanoid makes use of an online leaderboard and multiplayer modes via local and Wi-Fi connections. Multiplayer can be quite a bit of fun actually, and it's my favorite aspect of the game. You can battle it out with up to 4 players, with the goal either being the first to knock out all the bricks on one stage, or the first to knock out all of one color, which is definitely more challenging.

The single player game is set against 7 zones, with 5 rounds per zone. All together there are 28 zones to choose from, which is definitely a lot of Arkanoid to play. However, by the time you're entering zone 5 or 6, a lot of the novelty involved with Arkanoid starts to wear off, and when you reach those later areas that are filled with indestructible bricks, the game ends up being more aggravating than fun for the average player.

So while I definitely enjoy playing an updated classic on the DS, it just doesn't hold up as well against other recent, and successful revitalizations of older series. Whether this is because there's only so much you can do with a brick breaking ball, or because less time was spent in figuring out ways to make Arkanoid more entertaining is beyond me, but it doesn't hold up well for extended periods of time, and it's not something I can see myself going back to again and again. Still, at such a low price point it won't quite break the bank if you decide to check it out, so if you've been craving some old school brick busting action, then this could be the game for you.