Growing up, the Gameboy was my lifeline to video games during long summer excursions to Lake Kippewa, the location of the family house boat. We would be gone for 7-10 days at a time, and my Gameboy got me through it!

Alleyway is a game I never owned until recently, but learned that it was one of the first releases on the Gameboy when it first released. In it, you control a bar along the bottom of the screen and must prevent a ball from getting past you but moving the bar left or right. In addition, you must bounce the ball off of your bar and reflect it onto the floating boxes along the top of the screen. When the screen has been cleared of boxes – you pass the level!

There are something like 24 regular levels total, with a bonus level each 3 levels. I got to about level 12 and got board playing this game! The first few levels are fun, but soon enough, I learnt that there are no upgrades to improve your bar (it actually gets smaller in later stages) and the only thing that changes between levels is the pattern of blocks along the top of the screen. It’s true that later on the boxes start moving around and more start appearing, but it was still very uninteresting and could not keep my attention.

There is very little music in this game as well apart from the sound effects of the ball bouncing off of the walls and blocks. It was cool that the higher blocks made more high-pitched sounds – making it exciting that the ball was able to sneak up along the top, but the music was still a let down.

Overall, this is a very simple game that will likely keep your attention for 10-15 minutes max. There is very little sense of progression and the sound and music is quite poor. I would recommend this game for gamers needing to take a Number 2, but leave the game in the bathroom when you are done! Final score 4/10.

FINAL SCORE: 4/10