At this year’s Tokyo Game Show, some of the most fun I had was at Taito’s booth, playing Arkanoid DS. But it certainly wasn’t because the latest iteration of Arkanoid had some sort of stellar gameplay mechanics. No, it was because the attached paddle peripheral not only felt good in your hand, but truly brought that old-school arcade experience home.
So without Taito taking some money out of its marketing budget to ship us all a USB paddle peripheral, this online Flash demo of the upcoming Arkanoid DS is really only winning half the battle. It gives you a good idea of the visual and audio style of the upcoming game (which hits Japan later this year, and North America Q1 of 2008), but using a keyboard or mouse certainly lacks that necessary 80s arcade cabinet feel.
You can play the game over at Taito’s official Arkanoid DS site. Or, if you want to keep it in the family, head on over to BlindsideDork’s community blog, where he was nice enough to embed the game right into his page.
