Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   This was originally given away in Feb 07 when it received one of the highest positive ratings a game giveaway has ever received at 95% out of 195 votes; only 10 community members voted thumbs down for this game. (Personally I don’t think it rated such a high percentage as there have been much better arkanoids given away since the project started, IMO). There were 66 comments of which comment #33 by Game Seeker is probably the most useful to read; then it was given away again back in February of this year where it received a decent positive 89% of 360 votes and 62 comments. You can see all the comments made about this game via the following links. I’ve also included a link to Locketts forum review:

   Feb 07:

   http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/egyptoid/#comments

   Feb 08:

   http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/egypt-oid/#comments

   Locketts review:

   http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2556

   The download size is just under 10Mb and once installed is 19Mb

   Introduction

   Egyptoid is a perfect blend of classic Arcanoid with the magic of Egypt. Traveling through 72 never-the-same levels, your objective will be to destroy various patterns of blocks by bouncing the ball. In doing this, you must keep an eye out for bonuses that can speed up or down the paddle, give an extra life, extend the paddle or make it magnetic. Featuring 8 spectacular worlds, 17 types of bonuses, Egyptoid is bursting with arcade fun!

   Reference: http://www.realore.com/egyptoid/ accessed 5th Dec 08

   This is a decent 3D arkanoid; though I wouldn’t place it in my top 20 list of arkanoids. Compared to some breakouts Egyptoid actually requires some skill to progress through the various temples of which there are eight because to destroy most bricks on some levels you have to make particular shots to be able to progress. Each temple comprises of eight levels, and to progress from one temple to the next you have to complete all levels within that temple. Besides the 64 temple levels there are also 8 secret levels that can only be opened by collecting special keys that look similar to the other symbols that you collect to unlock the magical powers. You cannot save levels while playing a specific temple until you’ve completed the temple and unlocked a new temple, then that particular temple can be replayed at any time, though you still have to start from the beginning of the level. All arkanoid fans will probably like this one despite the power ups being nothing special; except for the symbols that you have to collect that unlocks magic powers and secret levels. The ball physics allows for good control. So if you’re skilled with ball and bat you’ll need to play on the more difficult settings of which there are three.

   Decent graphics add to a pleasurable game to play. I bought this quite some time ago and had forgotten about it, so thanks for reminding me.

   The options menu allows you to adjust sound and music as well as toggle between full screen and windowed mode. You can also select several screen resolutions varying from the lowly 640x480x16 up to 1600x1200x32 and there are also three lighting settings, no light, normal light and advanced light. It appears that some people did have problems with some levels appearing black. This may be down to the type of graphics card you have as well as which setting you have it set on. If you do get the black screen problem, try changing this setting. Someone posted in the comments section previously that this definitely worked for. Them

   System Requirements:

   o Pentium II 750
   o Win 98/2000/XP
   o DirectX 8.1
   o 128MB MB RAM
   o Video: 3D

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Images & Reviews:

   All on one page:

   http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Egyptoid/?albumview=grid

   As a Slideshow:

   http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Egyptoid/?albumview=slideshow

   Googled:

   http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Egyptoid&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

   Other Online Reviews worth reading:

   http://www.reflexive.com/Egyptoid.html

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Conclusion

   Today’s arkanoid is worth 7 out of 10 in my opinion. It’s not the best, but good enough for me to have bought it before it was first given away. The only gripe I have with the game is having to complete all the levels within any one of the temples before your progress can be saved. As there are only 8 temples to explore, that means you’d have to play the game in eight or fewer sessions to complete the game. I much prefer to be able to save each level you play, and even better; being able to save a game mid level. If you managed to get Egyptoid 2 you’ll find the game play similar though the original has a couple less power ups and the graphics aren’t as sharp, plus there are additional elements added to the gaming boards that make Egyptoid 2 more interesting to play.

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Similar Games

   Here’s links to a few more of this genre. They are all quite similar, but if you’re into arkanoids like I am you’ll love ‘em. The only down side to these is that a browser is opened once the game is closed that takes you to the Gametops home page. Though I’d say that is not a bad thing because there are perhaps 80 or so free commercial quality games available for download, covering most of the arcade game genres. These games are not freeware, but commercial games being given away for free. At present there are ten decent full version breakout/arkanoid clones available for download plus three more online breakouts. You can find all the download links for these games that include Egyptian Ball, Geometry Ball (Twinzoid), Aztec Bricks, Cosmo Ball, Turbo Ball, Sawnoid, A-Ball (Nuclear Ball) and Scara Ball (Gem Ball). The names in parenthesis are the original names which for licensing reasons have been changed. You can also find loads of freeware arkanoids via the following forum, links:

   Arkanoids and Breakouts: A List:

   http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2607

   Day 5 of the Free game for the Weekday:

   http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/3889

   Week 9 of the Free games for the Weekday:

   http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4214

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   Posted 16 years ago #
2. 

   darnell42
   Member

   Will this game work on Vista? When I tried to download it, the screen starts flashing and the only way I can get it to stop is to restart my computer. I've had this to happen with games on other sites, too. Thank you.

   Posted 16 years ago #
3. 

   notblocklox
   retired

   Yes, darnell42, it runs fine under my Vista HP.
   Please tell us some more about your system, it matters what graphic-card you have.
   I am sure, that someone here will tell you more then. Anyhow, we all have to live with the truth, that not every configuration fits to every program. I got a reminder on this last night, I had to cope with Firefox, some add-ons and in first place, my own silliness :P
   Good luck!
   graylox

   Posted 16 years ago #
4. 

   darnell42
   Member

   I have the Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition with Service Pack 1 and the NVIDIA GeForce 7100 Graphics. Thanks.

   Posted 16 years ago #
5. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Hi Darnell,

   Try changing the screen resolution of your monitor 'lower' and then try again. (I'm assuming you have a good LCD monitoer). If you read my review above I mention the screen resolutions that the game supports. (up to 1800x1200x32 I think) If you have your monitor set higher than the game can support it can sometimes cause the problems you describe.

   OR

   1)

   Also try updating your graphics drivers. You can download new drivers for your 7 series board from Softpedia, though if you’re not sure, go directly to NVIDIA:

   http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-BOARD/NVIDIA/NVIDIA-GeForce-6-and-7-series-GPUs-4-13.shtml

   2)

   The following link takes you to the latest drivers directly from NVIDEA, taking into account your system (I plugged in Vista Home Premium 64 bit with a 7 series vid card and the following came up

   http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_178.24_whql.html

   Ideally the last one would be the logical choice, but the latest are not always the best.

   It's really important that before you install the graphics drivers you create a restore point first, because if anything goes wrong, I don't want someone knocking on my door with an axe, lol. The unzipped package comes with it's own installer, so all you need to do once you've unzipped the download (assuming it's zipped) is click and it's installed.

   I hope this helps.

   Regards

   Whiterabbit

   Posted 16 years ago #
6. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Just bringing this back to the front page

   Posted 13 years ago #
7. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   If it helps...

   Then as now some folks are having problems playing Egyptoid [see the regular Game GOTD page], & I think in many (most?) cases their graphics hardware, like darnell42's a couple years ago, is just not up to it. [Back in 2007 the Nvidia forums have similar complaints with the same answer -- that particular card just wasn't up to the task.]

   Many games & most programs do not need graphics hardware that supports Direct 3D commands -- it's a specialized set of instructions that even if they worked everywhere just don't always do the job as well as regular programming. But when a game for example relies on that stuff, there are no work-arounds for hardware that can't do it -- emulating D3D in software is Very limited. When a game won't play lack of D3D support isn't always the cause, but when it is, if the drivers aren't broken there isn't an easy software fix.
   ______

   Microsoft created DirectX years ago because people were still playing games using DOS rather than Windows -- they got better performance in DOS. The problem was that in DOS the game's programming could more directly address the hardware, rather than talking to Windows & relying on it to interface with the hardware. DirectX provided a way to shortcut that process, giving program code more direct control over hardware, & as it's now in version 11, it's been proven both popular & successful. Direct 3D is a part of DirectX, & it gives programmers ways that they can tell the graphics hardware to do whatever calculations &/or how to display something on-screen. The graphics hardware for its part has to be able to do those calculations fast enough & support the commands D3D code sends it.

   Now, today the way graphics cards & on-board chipsets are designed is Top Down... AMD/ATI & Nvidia come up with newer & better graphics processors every year or so, design a really great graphics card around it, & that's where they have the big profit margins, going head to head competing with each other, with some hard core gamers buying 4 graphics cards per PC, at $500 or so a pop! At the least 2 cards costing $300 or more are more common than not with this crowd. Of course the graphics chip companies don't want to abandon everyone else, so they also sell a full range of cards/chipsets for most every need, starting at ~$30. And they design those cards/chipsets by taking their best of the best & turning things off -- they turn features off in the chip itself & in the surrounding circuitry, so the lower the price the more crippled the product.

   Buying a graphics card is more complicated than it should be because how much they cripple each model is a judgement call & they often go too far, but if you have patience & don't mind a bit of research the good news is you can usually make a decent buy... Patience comes in by buying hardware that being phased out, which isn't a big deal since new models are typically released every year or two. Research is needed so you can pick one of the better models, one where the balance between price & performance is in your favor [i.e. a card that's less crippled but still has a lower price]. AMD/ATI & Nvidia produce the chips & designs, but it's up to various other companies to make & sell the cards, and usually in the spring older models start showing up at up to 1/3 off, & then during the summer may plunge closer to 1/2 price. The logic we use here is that a slower CPU & less RAM will still do the same work as faster PCs, but if you want or need what a range of graphics cards offers there is no other choice, no slower version that'll work because it's not just speed but features that are cut -- when a D3D app or game tells the hardware to do something, it either can or can't. We don't treat the graphics card as an add-on, but try to balance costs for CPU, RAM, & the graphics card.

   That said, the rest of a PC has to be able to support the graphics card you bought or buy. It takes power & it takes cooling -- the better the card, the more you'll need of each, so if you research graphics cards, along with the reviews read the manufacturer published power supply requirements. Reviews will give you a good idea of how much heat a card produces, & realize that if you introduce extra heat inside your PC's case [by adding that card], you might have to add a fan or two to expel that heat... increasing the in-case temp increases the CPU temp [graphics processors can easily get in the neighborhood of 170-190 degrees F], & if you've got poor airflow + a less capable heatsink on the CPU you could have problems, as CPUs will start throwing errors & as it gets hotter [hopefully] shut down as the CPU temp approaches critical.

   Posted 13 years ago #
8. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Bringing this back to the front page for todays game giveaway. to get back to the comments section click HERE. you can also check out another Egyptoid thread HERE

   When this thread was originally started we couldn't post images in the forums.

   

   

   

   Posted 10 years ago #

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