For those having issues getting today's game to work; please check the FAQ's thread over in the Game Discussion forums. There's a link (labelled Forums sandwitched between Contact and Blog at the bottom of this page that will take you to the Forums.

Select the Game Discussion link in the Forums Main Theme section near the bottom of the Latest Discussions page; once in the Game Discussion forum look thorough the sticky section of the Game Discussion forums where you'll find the Game FAQ's thread.

Hopefully you'll find a fix there; I reckon it's worth the effort; epsecially if you like breakouts.

Ballbuster Collection:

In Brief:
The Ballbuster Collection is a 3D version of breakout with 1000 levels divided into four themes of 250 tables each. Explore and beat each one; there's three different modes of play i.e Level mode where you play level after level until you fail. Your high score is entered into a score table on this mode. Choosing game gives you instant access to all 1000 levels and random game where the level is randomly chosen for you.


You can see a couple of videos of game play HERE and HERE.

Introduction:
The Ballbuster Collection is a break out game (often referred to as an arkanoid game). There are four themed worlds i.e. Stone Age, Ancient Greece, Fantasy Forest, and Candy World.

Features
1,000 levels
4 worlds
3 difficulty modes
3 types of weapons
20 power-ups

The Game:
Breakout games have been one of my favorite casual arcade games ever since I played the very first breakout made by Atari back in 1976. I've been collecting them since they first became easily available when the first desktop PC's appeared in the 1980's and have hundreds of them, most of which are shareware, but there are also loads of free ones that you can find online, for example you'll find free 3D breakouts HERE (30) and 2D breakouts HERE (169).

Todays giveaway is a 3D version, which I've found tend to be relatively easy to beat compared to their 2D compatriots. Still, todays game is an excellent starter with over one thousand levels to beat.

The older style graphic reminds me of those breakouts released around 15 to 20 years ago for example XRay Ball, and the early Magic Ball series. The developer of Magic Ball, that was originally distributed by Alawar Games was forced to change all four Magic Ball games to Smash Frenzy (1 to 4) because Magic Ball had already been used by a previous developer.

As with all breakouts of this type, you get various power-ups that can speed up your ball or slow it down, increase the size of your bat or make it smaller as well as change the ball to a bomb, make the whole arena move slightly when you move your bat as well as some weapon types such as the laser and machine gun that help to destroy lots of bricks. All of the power-ups are either timed to last a short period, or with respect to those with weaopons, the ammunition is limited, and if you pick up another weapon power-up, it will cancel the one you already have (unless you've expended all the ammunition). The N power up cancels any power ups added to your ball, but does not change power ups added to your bat or cancel the barrier power up that blocks off the drop zone below the bat.

When you have destroyed most of the bricks in the level, you can end the level quickly by collecting one of the icons that falls near the end of the level (see the power-ups image directly above for details of what it looks like), or you can continue to the end of the level by avoiding the 'Complete Level' power-up to get the best possible score if you've chosen the Level Mode and if you are into being on the high score tables.

Conclusion:
Although the game looks a little dated, it plays perfectly and for anyone who likes breakouts/arkanoids, (they are often called arkanoids becasue of Taito's entry into the breakout market, which was called Arkanoid). I recommend downloading it for yourself. This game will keep you entertained for many many hours due to the number of levels it contains.

If you fancy more free breakouts check the links I posted above and check out the thread I created over in the giveaway forums about a decade ago specifically for breakouts where you'll find links to free versions HERE. Also check out the recently created forum section called 'Free Game Project', where I've posted details of one of my all-time top ten 2D breakouts that was made freeware by the developer several years ago, called Breakquest. I've just discovered that another of my (all-time) favorite 3D breakouts, called Action Ball Deluxe is being released on Steam next month. The developer did say, when Actionball 2 was released over a year ago, that if 100 people liked the game, he would release the original. Really pleased to see it on Steam soon. You can check it out HERE. It's over 15 years old, but it still looks great and is one of the more challenging 3D breakouts available.

Also, available free is another excellent and unusual breakout called Chak's Temple. The developer made this freeware over a decade ago, yet I still see it being sold on some of the shareware sites. I know it was made freeware because I was in touch with the developer at the time.

I've checked several download sites, but most of the files I downloaded were suspect with up to 20 malware hits. The only site I downloaded a copy that was totally free from malware hits was from My Real Games HERE; I checked it against Virus Total and it was given a clean bill of health. You can see the result of the scan HERE

I've not yet had the pleasure of downloading and installing any games from My Real Games; so cannot say what sort of system they use; suffice it to say that all the free game sites I know of that stock games permanantly or for extended periods all have an advert based giveaway so that they can pay the developers for allowing them to give them away.

It was originally given away HERE way back in April 2007, where it received a positive 88% from 269 votes with 64 comments.


Final Say
I'd only played several levels before writing my short review of the game. I'd like to say, despite its retro looking graphic, I've found the game to be very well constructed and gives you lots of different levels to play with. The more I play it, the more I like it. I've got far better breakouts in my collection, but this one is still a decent game and well worth adding to your library. I did note that the initial start is sluggish. If you try to click on the screen before the full main menu appears it's lible to crash. Once the main menu (see the first image above) is visible then the game should be okay to continue. All three modes give you something slightly different, the first mode (Level Mode) gives you a High Score table, the Choose Game mode enables you to choose any one of the thousand levels from four different worlds and the Random game just throws you in and randomly chooses a game from the four different worlds.

Notes on Security
I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game using Virus Total and it found zero hits from 56 antimalware engines.

The downloaded executable 'may' include some low level adware that opens your browser to TooMKY Games home page after the game has installed and may place some shortcuts onto your desktop; these can be safely deleted once the game has installed.

The installation does NOT inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to TooMKY Games home page following the games installation, it earns TooMKY Games games some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. The giveaway version of TooMKY games version has had most of the adware disabled.

You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/cb5cdae97b7aa083c4917cf683a7103902fbec288adcc6105f3551929d670166?nocache=1