Google Taps Into Retro Arcade Nostalgia With This In-Browser Breakout Clone

Google has come a long way from its days as just a search engine, and while the company has since brought us dozens upon dozens of additional products and services, Google Search has picked up some new tricks of its own, too. Over the years we’ve seen Google add functionality like a calculator, currency and unit conversion tools, and even a few games. Today we’re checking out the latest addition to that library, as Google introduces a blast from our gaming past.

If you search for Google for “block breaker,” you’ll now be presented with the latest interactive game to find a home in Search. Tap that Play button to get started, and you’ll be presented with a surprisingly fleshed-out Breakout clone (via Android Police).

Games where you bounce a ball off a sliding paddle to break blocks have been around for decades, so thankfully this one adds a few twists that elevate its gameplay a bit. Those include modifiers that change the way your paddle behaves, extra balls, and even exploding blocks — just avoid downgrades. The compact size of the playfield helps keep gameplay moving at a brisk pace, with a new set of four lines of blocks sliding down every time you clear the last.

Whether you think of this as “block breaker,” “Arkanoid,” or maybe even “DX-Ball 2,” the granddaddy of all of these games is Atari’s Breakout for the arcades. There’s even a bit of a smartphone connection there, as right before they got around to founding a little company you might have heard of called Apple, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs both worked on designing Breakout hardware.

When you’re done playing Block Breaker, you can check out some of the other games built into Search through the handy carousel Google provides.

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