Roboball was first given away back in late April this year and received 92% of 261 votes with 104 comments. Apart from the usual first posts that damn the game before it’s obvious they have even downloaded or at least evaluated the game properly, or perhaps checked over on the Alawar site to see what community members have to say about the game there. Conversely, quite a few who said they didn’t like Breakouts previously said they really liked this one. Overall there a very positive response from the community about this game.
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/roboball/#comments
Quite a few people got fatal error problems. Thankfully a guy called Marty-R comment #53 from April’s comments spent some time trying to research what could be the problem and discovered that if you have your screen resolution set at certain settings the game would crash. He tried low and high settings (but didn’t elaborate) and he managed to get the game working. So if you do get a fatal error message, try changing your screen resolution first before you give up on the game. Another possibility would be to re-boot your computer.
Review of Roboball:
I bought this one just after it was released late February, so Alawar are actually giving away new games. IMO it’s not as good as Magic Ball 3, but definitely better than Magic Ball 2. As with all 3D breakouts, the game play tends to be much easier than their 2D counterparts, so if you wish to be challenged at all, you’ll need to reduce the size of the paddle and increase the speed of the ball. Unfortunately there is no ability to select difficulty settings. In fact the options menu is rather limited, with just the sound and music sliders and a toggle for windowed and full screen mode.
There are 24 power ups and three pseudo power ups that give you extra points in the form of collecting different colored gems. As already mentioned the majority of the power ups are run of the mill, for example Barrier, extra life, small ball etc; however there are a few that you don’t see everywhere; that is, the negative score minus power down, lightning strikes (seen in magic ball 3), freeze, which stops your paddle from moving for several seconds and a gem attractor, which helps you to collect all the gems falling, which sometimes is quite a lot, especially if you have the acid ball running wild, combined with crazy ball. You can find a full list of the power ups/downs in the help menu.
The incentives for playing the game besides the usual relaxation/chilling out reasons are that you can gain awards for achieving specific goals such as not losing a ball for a certain number of levels, or being able to collect specific amounts of crystals in a particular level, for example, the lowest award is for 80%, which an be surprisingly difficult if you are playing as i do with the small bat and fast ball. (That is if I manage to get one). The final award which you can see as a faded image is a larger star with a thumbs up, which means you’ve completed the game, which i did in a couple of days of casual play. You don’t necessarily collect all the awards the first time around. This is probably one of the many breakouts I’ve got that I will return to in the future
Saying that I didn’t find the game very challenging, but I still enjoyed playing it through, partly because I am a breakout/arkanoid junkie
You are able to run multiple profiles on this game and provided you complete a level, your progress to that level will be saved. Any level that you have completed can be returned to at any time. There are 80 levels in all, with a fantastic variety of themes from forts and castles, animals, and space to library book shelves, ancient civilizations and celebrations. So there are lots of 3D images to bash to bits.
I personally don’t think the ball physics in this game is brilliant, and the brick physics could have been much better, em>considering it’s a relatively new game; the brick movement was basically the same as Magic ball and Magic ball 2. Still on overall performance I’d give this game 7 out of 10. (I was a little disappointed when I bought this hence the lower than normal score for one I’ve previously bought)
Other Arkanoid Suggestions:
If you’re into 3D arkanoids, apart from Magic Ball 3 I would recommend you try Incrediball:The seven sapphires. It’s a few years old now, so the graphics by today’s games are looking a little frayed around the edges, but the game play as well as story line and replay ability of this game far outweigh the graphics. (that would make you think they aren’t good. far from it, they have a great appeal, with their oriental feel. Check out the demo by Googling the name and going for a reputable distributor. Oh very well, here’s a link that’s safe, (according to MacAfee Site Advisor at any rate) lol:
http://www.games2download.com/free-arcade-games/incrediball-seven-sapphires.htm
Check the screen images. There are loads of power ups that you don’t normally see as well as additional levels to be had. I’m still waiting for a levels editor for this game as I’ve played it through a few times and still feel it’s one of the best 3D arkanoids around.
For 2D arkanoids you can’t go wrong with Aky’s ZP Breakout, the only thing negative about this game is it’s appalling name. The game play is outstanding. you never fail to get surprised with this game. it even has the old flying saucer flying across the top of the board, and yes, hitting it can open up a totally different way of playing the game, but it takes you at least 20 boards to earn the privilege. This game also comes with the added bonus of an easy to use levels editor. Check the demo out. this also is a few years old, so expect a retro style of graphics, but IMO it’s the game play and incentives that are the most important. the graphics are still pretty good though. Your balls are in the form of manna. Anyway, this game is packed with features and surprises’ that you’ll not see in any other break out game. One more try … no i’ll save that for another time, lol. Anyway, here’s a link to a site for a demo of Aky’s
http://www.isotope244.com/games/ab/ackys-xp-breakout.html
The screenshots don’t include certain important features of the game. However they do include a reasonable list of features.
Thank you Alawar and the GGAotD for providing the community with this great new breakout. I don’t think there’s one newer actually. Let me know if there is.
Notes:
For those disliking the music you can find the music files within the Roboball folder by following the path:
Roboball\data\sound\music
The files are in the ogg format, so you will have to change whatever MP3/WAV files you want to use into ogg by using a reasonable audio converter. If you haven’t downloaded one from a previous giveaway you can get one from the freeware library:
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/2007/07/30/free-mp3-wma-wav-converter/
Ensure that the files you do convert are then renamed to the files you are replacing; ie game_theme, win_theme, menu.
These are the basic requirements to run this game according to the html read me file file found in the games folder. These are:
P 1000 Mhz or equivalent processor
128 MB RAM
Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
DirectX 9 or higher
Check out Alawars game site for more comments about this game and Swans review comment #65 from the previous giveaway:
http://www.alawar.com/games/roboball/comments/
also for plenty of Googled screenshots:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Roboball&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2