One of my first ports of call at the local arcade as a kid was the Arkanoid machine (or Breakout, as it's commonly known). I spent many a day at the paddle trying to destroy all the blocks and beat the highest score (without much success, I might add).

The Arkanoid format is one of the most copied in mobile gaming, and while Active Ball isn't the most polished I've seen, it's certainly one of the better ones. As usual your mission is to destroy all the blocks by bouncing balls off your trusty paddle, scoring points along the way.

For me, Breakout games live and die by their power-ups, and Active Ball performs well in terms of the range of treats on offer. There are a bevy of different types of tiles with a range of behaviors, including powerful fire balls, extra lives, slow motion play, and bigger bats and balls.

This makes for a pretty diverse challenge - and what a challenge! After the first couple of levels the game becomes mightily difficult with countless unbreakable blocks and lightning fast gameplay. It represents good fun for nimble-fingered experts, though the learning curve may be a little steep for newbies (though thinking about it, how many people out there do you think have never played Arkanoid?)

All in all, a pretty decent clone of a classic game.