Breakout 2000

Breakout 2000 is a 1996 action video game developed by MP Games and published by Telegames for the Atari Jaguar. Part of the 2000 series by Atari Corporation, it is a remake of the arcade game Breakout (1976), and one of the last officially licensed releases for the platform. Featuring a similar premise to Breakout, the player must destroy a layer of brick lines by repeatedly bouncing a ball spawned off a paddle into them and keep it in play. Gameplay modifications to the original game include a third-person perspective behind the paddle in a pseudo-3D playfield, power-ups, bonus levels, enemies, varying level designs, and multiplayer features.

Breakout 2000 was the first Jaguar project by MP Games, an Indiana-based developer which had previously worked on productivity software for PC and WalZ, a Breakout-style game for Atari ST based on Arkanoid (1986). Mario Perdue, the game's lead programmer, originally developed a Windows 3.1x version of WalZ, which went unreleased due to its similarity with Breakout and a fear of receiving a lawsuit from Atari. He later approached Atari staffer J. Patton, who recommended Perdue to work with the Jaguar hardware and loaned him a development kit for the system. Perdue sent a copy of the unreleased Windows version of WalZ to Atari staff, who liked it and served as basis for the project.

Upon release, Breakout 2000 received an average reception from critics. Reviewers praised its gameplay and multiplayer mode, with a mixed reception on the game's controls, and criticism directed towards the game's audiovisual presentation and slow pacing.