Giveaway of the Day - Bubble Ice Age

Introduction and Installation

We’ve not seen this version of the Bubble match three genre before in the Game giveaway project. Installation is a breeze with the downloaded zip file weighing in at around 2Mb less than twice the size of an old floppy disc. The unzipped file consists of the usual read me and a combined activation and set up module. Once installed the game is just over 3Mb in size.

The game was originally released in Sept 2003, updated to v1.2 in Nov 2003 and recently given a big overall to upgrade it to v1.28. (Which doubled the number of levels in the puzzle mode from 100 to 200 (40 for each difficulty setting). If you do miss out on today’s giveaway or lose it to a format or upgrade and you really do want this particular version then ensure that you buy it from the developers site, Realore as opposed to some of the more obscure distributors who are still selling v1.2 for $19.95 as opposed to v1.28 for $15.95. In the UK some distributors are even trying to sell this for nearly 12.95 pounds as opposed to the 7.90 it should cost. (Which at present exchange rates is equivalent to over $25) There are alternatives that are just as good such as the recently given away Scarab shooter and Bubble Odyssey (which you can get free from Freegamepick under the guise of Bubblematch - see below) and Aqua Bubble 1 and 2 as well as Phantasia and Phantasia II. There are others such as the one that Brian Zachary suggested called Smiling bubbles (available from http://Absolutist.com ) and Shooter Premium edition and Bubble Golden Pack from the same distributor/developer. There’s a couple of innovative clones such as Bubble Bay that in my opinion gives the genre a much needed lift and another Zuma like one called Bubble Fish Bob, both available from http://reflexive.com

The Game

To be honest there is nothing new being offered with this game apart from the ability to change background wallpapers and change the look of the bubbles from a choice of 11 styles, (though Aqua Bubbles II has virtually the same set) and most of these look remarkably similar to each other. Also there are five difficulty settings rather than the usual three ranging from Baby, Easy, Medium, Hard and Unreal The difficulty levels differ from each other by the size of the playing field and the number of ice bubbles as well as the speed at which the bubbles approach the out of bounds area. The Baby setting also has a helpful line that points the way to where the bubble will go; though you can get this as a bonus in all the difficulty settings when playing in the advanced mode.

You’ll find four game modes in this version of the Bubbles shooter. All four have two things in common. The temperature gauge to the right of the field that increases every time you shoot an ice bubble and, depending upon the difficulty setting the whole playing area is brought one line closer to the out of bounds area once you reach a specific number of turns for example, when playing in the Baby difficulty setting you get 11 shots before moving, 10 shots for Easy, 9 shots for Medium etc. so the aim of the game is to clear the area in as few shots as possible before you run out of space. The main difference between this and the likes of Bubble Odyssey and Aqua Bubbles is that if you do destroy any matching sets it doesn’t give you ‘extra time’ before the playing field descends nearer the out of bounds area, which basically makes this game much more of a challenge than previous bubble clones. The four modes and their basic differences are described below:

Classic.
The playing field is half full of randomly placed ice bubbles. The aim of the game is to get rid of all of the bubbles by creating matches of three or more colored bubbles before any Ice bubbles reach the out of bounds area, by using the ice bubble gun that’s fixed to the bottom of the playing arena
Puzzle.
In contrast to Classic mode, ice bubbles in this mode aren’t placed randomly but form patterns. It has 40 levels for each difficulty setting. To clear the field you have to solve the puzzle.. On some playing fields even one wrongly placed bubble can lead to a game over. If you lose the game this is the only mode where you can return to the beginning of the level you last played by clicking on new then resume.
Advanced
This is similar to the classic mode in construction, though you get several bonuses such as bombs and score multipliers.
Endless.
Personally I couldn’t figure out how this was different to the Classic mode. Maybe because I was testing the demo, it was locked, though I don’t think so.

Other things to note are the ability to change the strength of the gun, though It was hard to see any difference in the free version. You can also adjust the snow effect from the options menu. The game is fully mouse controlled.

Images

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Bubble%20Ice%20Age/

Images: Slideshow

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Bubble%20Ice%20Age/?albumview=slideshow

Game Requirements:

The requirements for this game are very basic and unless you’ve got a computer that was made in the 90’s, your computer should easily cope with the graphic requirements of this game which are only 1Mb. The amount of RAM you need is also minimal and went out with the dinosaurs at least a decade ago. (16Mb. All versions of Windows from 9x to Vista are supported in this version of the game which is v1.28

Conclusion

If you’ve downloaded any of the previous bubble games (Aqua Bubble, Aqua Bubble 2, Bubble Odyssey, Scarab Shooter and SeeSoar in the past six weeks then you wont find much different apart from a better selection of difficulty choices. To be fair though, after comparing this with those I kept (Aqua Bubble 2 and Bubble Odyssey) I found this one was more challenging than either of those though I found Aqua Bubble more entertaining as it had a better selection of modes. So for that reason alone I’ll be keeping this one. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the fact that I couldn’t see any difference between the classic and endless modes. And though the advanced mode did have bonus items (which are always a welcome addition to any game) it also seemed very similar to the other modes. Check out the screenshots and you’ll find it hard to distinguish between any of the modes, I think changing the playing arenas for each mode would have improved the overall look of the game and perhaps helped to give each mode an identity

Its definitely a playable game, but not inspiring enough to give it more than 6 out of 10 and then a very poor six in my opinion..

Notes and other information

ZF found a freeware version of the bobble theme the other day when Bubble Odyssey was given away called Puzzle Bobble which can be downloaded from:

http://djes.free.fr/ or http://www.bgames.org/gamesen.html

You can also get a commercially available bubble smashing match three game from Gametop called Yeti Bubbles:

http://www.gametop.com/download-free-games/yeti-bubbles-download/

Or Bubble Match (aka Bubble Odyssey) from FreeGamePick: (thanks to Josh who pointed that one out the other day)
http://www.freegamepick.com/en/games_bubblematch.html

Both of these sites do have a small price to pay because your internet browser is opened when the game is shut down, You are taken to the distributors home pages, where you can find a growing library of other free (commercial) games from several genres. You can also find a few that are related to the bubble games in the form of zuma/luxor clones such as Aqua Pop:

http://www.gametop.com/download-free-games/aqua-pop-download/

or Azteca aka Inca ball (that was given away recently)

http://www.gametop.com/download-free-games/azteca-download/

and finally here’s a freeware pocket PC version called absolute bubble shooter for all of you who have palm OS:

http://www.supershareware.com/info/absolute-bubble-shooter-2-for-palm-os.html

Whiterabbit!! It looks like you got the heads up you wished for. I usually look at the games just after the new one comes up for the day, but I have never downloaded it until I had several comments to read. Yours is equivalent to several comments. I already have some good match three from GAOTD, so I will not get this one, but it is nice to know your comment will be waiting for me first thing in the morning. Thank you.