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"Arcade style action in a small gray cart..."

Data East has been known to create some of the best arcade games of all time and they have been known to create some of the worst duds in history. Break Thru is one of those games that has a certain appeal to it that makes it fun and difficult to play without losing the arcade flare. Although the action is fairly outdated by later games for the NES, there is something to be found here that will keep you interested for hours to come. If you like the types of games where your sole purpose is to kill everything and keep yourself alive at the same time, then Break Thru is the game that might whet your appetite.

The story of Break Thru is essentially the same thing that every other war game has to offer with a bad guy and army taking over an island. In order to rescue the island and save the world {so to speak} you have to get into your bad ass little vehicle and travel through six different zones killing the enemies. Now, your vehicle is a little different than most military vehicles in the respect that it will jump depending on how fast you’re going. When you couple this with a myriad of upgrades that you can blast the enemies with, you have quite the assault vehicle at your disposal.

Playing through Break Thru doesn’t require rocket science and you’ll find that there is nothing here that is too difficult aside from avoiding the enemies. There are portions of the game that require you to have perfect precision when you’re driving and shooting, so be on the look out to increase your speed accordingly. Some of the more intricate points of the game come with driving through the six zones and having to use the jump feature that is available to you. Once you’ve gotten the hang of jumping your vehicle and firing your weapon, then you should be able to get from the beginning to the end with no problem.

The is the type of game that also features several different enemy types that range from stationary men firing guns at you to trucks with spread bullet capabilities. The trick to playing and enjoying this game is to learn the patterns at which they shoot because the typically tend to be the same. Something that you should be aware of is that the vehicle never stops moving, so you’ll have to find the right way to go and simply work with it. Once you get to certain points in the stage, you can continue from that point if you happen to run out of the three allotted lives the game presents you with.

Now, the challenge of the game depends on how fast you decide to keep the stages rolling. You might find that some of the stages are best played at a slower speed so you don’t have too much flying at you at any given point. However, the slower you happen to go with the vehicle, the slower it reacts to anything that gets in your way. The first couple of stages should be used as a practice to help you with the speed at which the game plays and it does help to know what the jump function does with vehicle speed.

The two-player feature of the game really doesn’t do much other than have you and a friend play through the stages and attempt to destroy the bad guys. This can come in handy when you’re trying to beat the game and you need just a little bit more fire power in one area or another. The control of the game is strictly speed driven, so you’ll have to figure out just what speed you need to be driving at when you try to jump over something that is in your path. One of the things that is an element and isn’t left out is the need to jump over just about anything that gets in your path, thus adding difficulty to the overall game.

Break Thru is not the most polished looking game out there, but the sense of speed and the combat involved looks good for a game this old. With the grainy visuals, you might find yourself staring at something that is definitely arcade-worthy from a classic gamer point of view. The environments are rather large and the enemy designs are well thought out, but you will find that some of the enemies look a little basic. Even the vehicle that you use seems to be a little muddy and it’s hard to make out some of the finer detail when the action gets too intense to keep your eyes on.

The music is your standard fare of action and adventure with a little uplifting beat added in for good measure. Although I really can’t see the need to have an uplifting musical tone in my ear while I’m trying to kill things, it does fairly well with the pace of the stages. I really can’t hear anything with the sound effects as they tend to get wound up and covered by the overuse of the gunfire and explosion effects. There were a couple of times that I did get to hear the vehicle jumping from place to place, but again, this was a minimal effect and it really didn’t seem to fit the point of the vehicle being a bad-ass military weapon.

Break Thru is a pretty good action game when placed up against others such as Jackal and Iron Tank. This game features plenty of driving and shooting goodness while retaining a challenge that is dictated by the speed at which you choose to play. The presentation is well thought out, though the visuals tend to get a little muddy when there is too much action on the screen and the audio can be a little out of place at times. Worthy of taking a look at, if you can find this game, you might want to pick it up and take it out for a spin to see what an above average action game on the NES is all about.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/28/03