Game Zone: Crack Attack!

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

To the uninitiated, Crack Attack!, which is available in the PCLinuxOS repository, seems more like a twist between Bejeweled and Tetris. Game author Daniel Nelson asserts that it is based off of the Super Nintendo classic game, Tetris Attack. Which ever it's most alike, game play is quick and very addictive.

The game requires that your video card support OpenGL 3D graphics rendering. Without it, the game is unplayable, according to the game's web site, at http://aluminumangel.org/attack/. Fortunately, most computers sold in the last four to five years support OpenGL graphics. Unfortunately, this means that I cannot play this game on my old Thinkpad T23 laptop, with a Pentium III processor and 8 MB of video ram.

When the game is first launched, you will be given the chance to make some selections on game play. Under the "Solo" tab, you can set the difficulty level, under "Computer AI." Since I am not much of a gamer, I chose the "Easy" level of game play. In the middle of the window, on the right, you can set the size of the display for the game, as well as the quality of the rendering. You can also set the name of the player here. I allowed mine to default to the same name as my computer login name. You can also set the "Game Mode" to either "Normal" or "X-treme." Perhaps it's due to my game play skill (or serious lack thereof), but I cannot see any difference between the two game modes.

Once you hit the "Start Game" button, you are presented with the above screen. Press any key to start game play.

Using the arrow keys and the space bar, you manipulate the colored blocks to get three blocks of the same color in a row, either vertically or horizontally. The arrow keys will move your selector around the screen, and pressing the space bar will reverse the position of the two blocks.

When you get three colored blocks lined up, they will disappear from your screen. As you clear the screen of colored blocks, "trash" will fall down from the top, while your colored blocks rise up from the bottom of the screen. As game play progresses, the colored blocks rise from the bottom of the screen at an increasing rate of speed. You can "blast" the trash at the top of your blocks by eliminating a row of same-colored blocks that come into contact with the trash. The "trash blocks" then become normal colored blocks, which you continue to remove in the normal fashion.

Game play for the current match is over once there is no more room at the top of the screen to fit your blocks into. You will either receive the "Game Over" screen, or the "You Win!" screen, depending on whether or not you won the match. I only received the "You Win!" screen once.

There is also an option to play others over a network. I only tested the "Solo" play aspect of the game.

Although rather simple, game play is challenging and very addictive. If you are anything like me, you will find yourself playing match after match. The best I've ever been able to do is to last 1:27 before getting the "Game Over" end-of-game screen. I'm sure you'll find Crack Attack! as addictive as I do.