I left this under the share box but I don't see it.


While I'm thoroughly enjoying this game I'm frustrated with how many buttons I have to push after I die to resume play...


I'd like to not need to push 4 buttons (Okay - I just died, Okay- this is my ranking in the high score, Start - yes! I do want to start again. Play - Yes! I want to play the same level again) just to resume play after dying on a level. If you simply leave a link to the main page on each play level one can choose a different level, choose to see the high scores, and choose to end the game.


Thanks for the game.

Its pretty addictive. Loved it and would like to try its next version with more powerups ..

As with #43 and #41, the main menu buttons are all offscreen so I can't get to the options menu.

I'll say upfront that this is not my kind of game, but I played it a bit anyway. Installed fine on Vista 64bit. Good graphics, OK music, smooth play (but I'm lousy at these). Even after finding the "Easy" mode (I had to add a new player), I would get stuck repeatedly in No Win situations. The ball and the big yellow ship would come so close together that even if I saved the ball I'd get killed anyway. Definitely should get more new lives at the beginning of each new level. Definitely should be able to "earn" more new lives during play. I like that you can Exit without a half-dozen "confirmation" clicks, but there are too many screens before you can restart a level after being killed. I never like games that will not accept that I am a "lefty" and have my mouse buttons reversed.

...and there should be a slow-mo mode for newbies like me. ;-)

Thanks, as always, for a chance to try a new game. Cheers.


................................Moderator Comment........................

Thank you for your feedback LuckyKitty

This is a cool Arkanoids game! Had no problem with
Themida wrapper this time! Downloaded into external
harddrive and activated setup from there as an experiment!
Then used a washer on wrapper to destroy wrapper just in case!
Had problem wrapper last time - none this time? Thanks!

It's past 4 am so I need to go to bed. I will endeavour to answer any other queries before the giveaway ends.


Good night.

Game is not centered on my monitor so I cannot play it since I can't see the menu. States in reply to #40 above different resolution choices. Where are the these resolution choices? If they are actually on the game screen then I cannot see them. The game is off to the right of screen too much and not centered and cannot see anything on the bottom of the screen. I have to use Ctrl Alt Delete to get it to close.

Definitely no Options Menu anywhere for me.

Anything I can do about any of this or do I just get rid of the game?


........................Moderator comment.......................

The options menu is selected from the main menu. Once in the options menu then you should be a ble to see the various resolution options. Try changing the actual screen resolutions first. Once you've managed to get into the options menu and changed to a more suitable size you can then revert back to your usual resolution.

If you look at the images I posted in my review you can see the main menu in the first image posted. To see an image of the options menu you'll need to watch the slideshow, which you'll find below the video links.

I re-downloaded, reinstalled, and got the same results. So sorry.

It downloaded and installed without any problems but when I went to play, it came up HUGE and all over to the right hand side of my screen. I couldn't get to any controls because they were well outside the perimeters. Hit Esc to try to get out, and it didn't. Finally had to Control Alt Del. Read a post to try to change the display but nothing worked, but it went into Black Screen. Maybe I don't know how. Tried to use Troubleshoot and all I got was a red screen looked like some kind of screen saver. I finally deleted the program. I will re-download and re-install but if that doesn't work I could really use some hints to try. this is a Toshiba laptop, 64-bit Win 7.


........................Moderator comment....................

Try initially changing your screen resolution then if possible (after changing the resolutio)n access the options and select a higher resolution setting or change to windowed mode. If you select widoed mode you can adjust the size of the window by selecting the different resolutions that I mention in a previous comment.

Installed fine. There's no tool bar - #25 JR must have downloaded from another site. Maybe he clicked on one of the ads?
I keep having problems with these games opening in a size that won't fit on my 1920 x 1080 screen. All the options buttons tend to be offscreen so I can't try windowed mode (is that an option for this game?). Using compatability mode doesn't help. Fiddling with screen resolution just messes up my desktop.
Well, at least Themida isn't casuing me a problem since I uninstalled Outpost Security. That's kind of a positive. I think.


...........................Moderator Comment..................

Yes you can play it in windowed mode. There's a toggle for windowed mode in the options menu next to the resolution choices. The resolutions you can select are 800x600, 1024x7658, 1152x720, 1280x720 and 1280x1024, there are also sliders to adjust the brightness, sound and music as well as mouse speed. (useful for changing the sensitivity of your mouse if you don't have a mouse with the function built in (for example a Razer Mamba or Lachesis). Being able to change the sensitivity of the mouse on the fly is very useful . If you can get into the options to change it to windowed then select the lowest resolution you will get a larger window to play with.

Quite playable and fun Arkanoid variant. The graphics are very colorful and polished. Special mention goes to the spaceship models; they are very cool and attractive. Everything moves smoothly and with pizazz.

I think I made it up to level 31 or so, and up to that point, I noticed no major glitches or lack of polish.

There are some inventive block pieces and power-ups, and the Robots are quite cool.

I wish there were a few more in-game music tracks. While the music is unobtrusive and sets the mood, and never gets grating (yet), I did notice the repetition.

The bonus stage is quite cool. The ones I've reached are quite "samey," though. Perhaps more variations in the bonus stages are in order.

Overall, though, there's not much to complain about. It's a very fun and addictive game that plays smoothly and slickly.

Being that this is one of the best "Arkanoid" variants that I've seen, I give it high marks.


...........................Moderator Comment.......................



Thank you for your feedback Rowdy Rob, much appreciated. You would probably like Hyperballoid 2 as well. That was released around the same time as Actionball2 and has some gorgeous graphics. There are four themed modes each with their own brick types. One big plus in hyperballoids favour (apart from its improved ball physics over the original hyperballoid is that there is a levels editor included, so there's the potential to make an unlimited number of levels. You used to be able to upload and share your levels with the Alawar community. I've not checked hyperballoid 2's web page for at least four years now, so don't know whether they continued with that. I'm sure there will be somewhere to download community made levels somewhere.

The game giveaway version is basically the same game as the one you can purchase from Alawar, but the file structure has been changed. I counted only four files in the giveaway version, yet in the purchased version there are 22 (though quite a few such as several icons are not necessary for the game to work). In the purchased version I think you can change the music by renaming your own music (after converting to the correct file type) to the one you want to replace. (the music file to replace is called music000.mo3 and can be found in the Actionball2\Data\Sound folders)

Here's a few images of hyperballoid 2, you can see three of the four world with their different brick types - Ancient World, Planets World and HiTech World. I've not shown the last of the four called Original World. In the original world levels the developer has tried to capture some of the flavor of the original games amazing collection of level designs. The original hyperballoid was noted for its amazing level designs, with over a thousand levels eventually being created for the game. (I spent over £140 purchasing the various level packs of which there were over 15, each of which had 50 levels, with the original game having 200 levels). Later when arkanoids lost their appeal the developer combined all of the level sets into one package (much like the Game of the Year versions we get these days), and sold the game as a standard game for what was then (several years ago) the normal price for an arcade game ($19.99).

Thank you to Alawar and also Game Giveaway Of The Day Team! This is a great game. I have the first from MyPlayCity, and this one is better. I had a bit of trouble with the boss and used up all of my lives trying to figure out how to avoid him. LOL

I do wish you could adjust the difficulty a bit easier, and that you did not have to kill so many robots to gain free lives. I am not very good at these games since RPGs are my thing. The gameplay is great, the graphics are fun and the music is okay. I always love the games from Alawar, I have bought many of them such as DNA. It would be nice to be able to change the music, or even import files easy.

I too have bought Shatter off of Steam and highly recommend that too! Thank you again, I do not have much to say about how to make the game better. This is one of the better ones!!


.......................Moderator Comment..................

One of the things I like about the original was the quirky graphics and the fact that you could earn more lives becasue you only needed to destroy nine robot ships to gain a life, whereas in Actionball 2 it's 25. When I first started playing it I couldn't get past the first boss battle (in Actionball Deluxe). It took me a couple of days of playing it to pass that stage and then only becasue I'd managed to acrue enough extra lives and hadn't lost any.

Granted overall the second game is much more polished, but I still think the first one was more fun; I loved the way the bricks just melted away in a blobby like fashion. The bricks were almost psychedelic in color with multicolored bricks of various hues and patterns. The game was just as hard, had fewer power ups that were not upgradable and you had a smaller arena (width ways) to play the game in, but apart from that there were many similarities. ;-)

hello all, i figure it is way past time that i actually typed a comment on here, after all i have been lurking here for many years now. i have been scared like many others about the themida in the wrapper, even though i understand the need for it, but since i like whiterabbit absolutely love the breakout games and i have this one on gamehouse (the ads drive me nuts) i thought that i would take a chance today, after setting a new restore point and shutting down most applications and programs, and give it a try. well much to my surprise and delight it went without a hitch. and i have to say i was really scared, i have an old xp sp 3 and have over 2 million files and such, thanks to my excellant external harddrives. thankful to say that everything works just the way it did before i downloaded this.

i would like to say thank you to giveaway of the day for all the excellant, and some not so, lol, programs that they have provided over the years, some of which i have actually purchased. my thanks also to whiterabbit, graylox, bubby and many others for the great reviews and advice.

now to actionball2...this is a great breakout game...one of the few that i can not beat without really trying, and i have richocet infinity, shatter and many, many others. the graphics are very crisp and the gameplay very fast, you really can not take your eyes off the screen or it will get you every time. the bosses and robots can be killers, but isn't that what they are supposed to do? like several others my name was already there and levels that i had played before are open, this is probably due to the fact that as i said i have this through gamehouse but since this worked i will be uninstalling that one.

thank you again gotd and alawar.



.......................Moderator Comment....................

Thank you for your feedback grammie2thecat

I don't get any sound
Other games like Crysis etc all sound is OK
any help?


.......................Moderator Comment..................

Try right clicking on the speaker icon in the tray and select the top option (open volume mixer). It could be that the volume is turned to zero for some reason. It shouldn't be, but it's worth a check. If that doesn't solve the problem try updating your sound drivers, both your motherboard sound drivers (probably Realtek) and/or your audio card drivers (probably Creative sound blaster). You may need to know the card details which can be found via dxdiag. (To open the direct X diagnostics panel type dxdiag in the run/search field then click on the sound tabs to find out which chiipset you have. go to the developers site and select the drivers option then fill in the requested details to ensure you get the correct drivers.

Downloaded twice and attempted to install twice on an XP Pro SP3 machine. I get a black screen and a message that says "out of range".

From the comments I'd love to try the game. Any suggestions?


..........................Moderator Comment..........................

If you don't manage to fix the problem you could try the free MyPlayCity version to see if its the giveaway vewrsion that's causing problems.

also try updating your graphics drivers, changing the screen resolution, updating Direct X and changing the visual settings by right clicking on the games exe file select properties and clicking on Compatibility tab. you'll see several options that you could try to check/uncheck.

There are some more suggestions that may seem a little more extreme:

This is caused by one of two things...

Firstly.

Yopur graphics card may beset with a higher output resolution oer refresh rate than what your monitor can handle.

If so, boot into Safe Mode and adjust resolution to something sensible for the
monitor. (This should be done automatically via EDID/DDC, which suggests
the second reason).


Secondly, hardware failure.

Either the monitor or more likely the graphics card has died or drifted
out of spec timing wise.

Some nVidia GeForce cards show 'black screen of death' due to faulty
caps. There are some fixes for this on the internet.

Try another monitor.

Unplug/replug graphics card from the motherboard then try again. (make sure you unplug your computer from the mains first)

Try another graphics card.

It's nice, really, but these kinds of games usually give me migraines (too much movement, too bright). How do I uninstall it? It's not showing up in Control Panel (XP3).



.......................Moderator Comment....................

As mentioned above in my last comment, most games are without uninstallers. This usually means they are free standing (though not always). to uninstall you just delete the game folder from where it was installed to.

If you want to make sure there is nothing else connected to this game still on your computer you can scan the registry (type in regedit, then go to edit and type in Actionball 2via the find function. delete each hit yuo find, to progress type F3. I'd make a restore point first if you start deleting registry entries. I've been editing my registry for years and have never ever had a problem yet. I didn't find any save files either in My Document or the app data folders (where you usually find saves)

Why is it I can't find any uninstall to remove this from my HD? Possibly one way of making sure Themida stays on my machine? Too bad, I always trusted Alawar in the past.

.......................Moderator Comment.......................

It's not Alawars fault that there's no uninstaller. If you download Alawars demo of the game you do get an uninstaller. It's the giveaway version. Most giveaways tend to have no uninstaller. To uninstall all you need to do is go to where the game is installed and delete the folder.

Even if there was a game uninstaller it has nothing to do with the Themida issue. Themida is within the wrapped exe file. Once you've installed the game, you delete the giveaway wraper. Nothing of Themida is ever actually installed onto your computer. It does not interact with your computer. It is there purely to protect the game files from users stealing them.

Already did all that. Installed fine on my other laptop windows 7 home 64 bit.
However it never did say installed successfully and bring up the internet page it usually brings up. The one odd thing it did on my other system is it brought up Winrar and I had to click ok for it to copy the files to the c:\games folder. I never got that on my other system.

super fun game can see I will have a lot of playing time with this one thank you

This really looks like a great game. It's a mix of two games in one, and I think it's gonna be a good one. However, I will not download it thanks to the wrapper now used.

To those of you getting virus warnings, it's because it's picking up Themida as it's very close to a rootkit. (The reason why I will no longer be downloading games or programs from GotD.)

Themida works much like a virus/spyware. I'm not saying it IS, however many keyloggers and the like are wrapped within a cracked version of Themida. And that's another reason why antivirus programs are picking it up.

Nice looking game, installs easily, no wrapper or registration issues. My high-school age son saw me playing and decided to get a copy on his laptop too. In addition to the positive comments others have made, I like the ability in the options to change the resolution of the game to better fit my laptop screen. It's too bad the game doesn't automatically detect my settings and do this. Also, the limited screen resolution options don't exactly fit my laptop, though I was able to improve the look and fit from the default. Finally, and thankfully, when the game is over or exited, the resolution on the computer switches back without issue.

Somehow, the game knew my name on first launch ... maybe from previous installs by the same company? Or, gets it from my PC profile? It was different from the Playrix games where I enter my name the first time. Not a problem, just an observation.


........................Moderator comment..................

It getsd it from your account name

Wow, a Nice game. Thanks GGOTD & Alawar.
I ran the game thru online Virus Scanner, and it is Clean!
But it surprised me when the prgoram Grabbed my PC name automatically and put it as the Player's name ... I did Not like that.
PS - I missed on last week's "Around the World in 80 Days" ... GGOTD, please consider a REDO!:)

WhiteRabbit,
(RE: #7 above): I have NOT had any problems with any desktop icons moving on any of these games, however, I HAVehad a problem with my "Gadgets" (that are placed near the right edge of screen) being moved 20 to 25% (or so) over towards the left upon having exited (closing) from the game.
This is on BOTH Vista Home Basic 32-bit AND Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Ichecked the properties asyou suggested above and NO Boxes are checked in Compatibility tab.
Do you (or anyone else) have any suggestions???
It gets a bit frustrating to move my Gadgets back from "On Top" of some of my Desktop Shortcuts every time.
Thanks-in-Advance,
Chris Roy Jackson



........................Moderator comment..................

Hello Chris, There is a freeware program that will save the loction of your desktop icons. unfiortunately I've forgotten the name. hopefully someone will be able to remind us later today. I do get the same problem with some games, but they are usually really old games.

I enjoy the game. I always enjoy arkanoid games. However, I was wondering how you change difficulty level. I never put in my name, yet my name was in there with a medium level of difficulty.


.......................Moderator Comment................

You can only change the difficulty level at the beginning of a game when you are setting your profile.

This is the craziest download I've gotten from you. First it wanted to install toolbbars, and I finally got the game downloaded and actrivated, but can't find it. It's not in the Games file as I agreed to, and I can't find it upon "Search". Would have really liked trhe game, but if I ever find it, I'll delete it. Can't be comfortable to trust it. I'm sure those more savvy than I can figure it out, but I can't.


.......................Moderator Comment....................

The instal path should be as mentioned in my review at comment #1. You then have to go to where it's installed and create a desktop shortcut.

As for the toolbars, the alawar demo will install a toolbar if you don't uncheck the boxes, but the giveaway version shouldn't have any toolbars to worry about.

Windows 7 pro 64 bit. Downloaded fine tried to install three times asked for admin typed it in says activating and disappears Can't find game anywhere. Looked in usual places c:\games not there. Tried program files and program files (x86) can't find it.
Any ideas?


.......................Moderator Comment....................

Go to the Start Menu and type in Actionball 2, the search function should find where the exe file is. Alternatively reinstall the game to see where it installs to. for some reason, some giveaways I've installed try to install to the previous giveaways location. I think this has something to do with the cookies installed on the computer.

No Icon or start menu item?
First level was fun, but in the 2nd the action area turns dark and you can't see what you are doing. What's with that? DUMB
Also a second comment about another virus, probably a false positive,
disappeared from the comments?



.......................Moderator Comment....................



Most giveaways don't have desktop or Start Menu/Program list shortcuts. As for the second level going dark, that shouldn't happen. Try right clicking on the exe file and select properties then click on the compatibility tab. change the visual themes etc. If that doesn't work you may need to change your desktop resolution.

Looks like this one is a keeper. It's a little difficult to use the touchpad on the laptop so will play this with a mouse.

Oh maybe can add this on. Found that to set difficulty level trick. Game takes PC's name 1-6 letters & Medium w/o any user choice. So at first screen click the line up top that it is NOT YOU. Then comes the screen you need. Can't delete the game created player until hit the + button & make a new Name & set the Level. Can then delete game made player if want to (can't alter that medium diff choice). Might be helpful to make a couple Player names and play a level Easy & Medium in case lose too many lives and game throws you to 1 life only condition mentioned by some posters.

Fine WIn 7 x64. Good set of Options and can even adjust mouse sensitivity slider. Background music not bad either. Mod graphics.
Just did one level to write this but did notice default mouse set left me in an overly twitchy responsive paddle motion at one point and lost the ball. Does seem you better lay up on extra lives. At least the robots often shoot annoying rocket at the last position of the ball when you hit them - less so at your paddle. Enough hits of robot and they blow up.
Still looking for difficulty level choice at beginning. Just seemed to go into game after Play. Nothing that suggests 3 levels of difficulty. See two screens shown in upper right corner w/ Preview but I doubt that sets diff level. Just played with top one. Can only guess it has defaulted to the medium diff of said 3 choices?
Game rates 9/10 for this genre. Well done & many thanks.



.......................Moderator Comment....................

Thank you for your feedback Beergas, much appreciated.

Heuristic.LooksLike.Win32.Suspicious.N by McAfee-GW Edition


.......................Moderator Comment....................

Ben, its the new wrapper that's causing these warnings. The game is absolutely fine as is the wrapper.

Action Ball is a little jewel. it works fine.
Very nice interface, very fresh positive and nice colours.
No bug at all. No adware. No problemo.

Action Ball renews the kind of case-bricks

Thanks Alawar!

Downloaded no problem at all on Windows 32 bit HP.
Activated and runs no problem either, couldn't be much simpler to do.
Game plays well, good easy starting speed, sharp graphics, interesting things going on. Sound also good, nice effects and many types too, not just the same couple of sounds repeating.
I played Archanoid on Spectrum MANY years ago, and this is a version of that, and it's very playable and well worth keeping, as the Spectrum game was !
Thanks to the author and to GAOTD for this software.

This is a GREAT game!! Reminds me of Magic Ball.
Thank you so much!!


......................Moderator Comment.....................

Only this is much better than Magic Ball; that's if you want something a little more challenging. I could play through virtually the whole of Magic Ball without losing a life wheras with this game I do lose them frequently. (Magic Ball is now know known as Smash Ball Frenzy - I don't know why they changed the titles, I nearly purchased them when I first saw the new name. Thankfully I checked out a demo first and recognised them as Magic Ball.)

Very cool came. Nice play, good graphics. A Keeper, thanks! This company codes very well, everything works crisply and without lag or trouble.

#11: "...I did have a glitch that could simply be on my computer. I needed to lower the volume during game play so I pressed the “windows” button on keyboard and could not get back from the black screen it went to. Tried “esc” key and it went to an abnormally large windows explorer screen with my mouse pointer stuck in the top left corner. I had to do the “cntrl, alt del” to log off my computer to get things back to normal..."

Lots of games switch to a lower display resolution to lower the hardware requirements for the game -- that way more people can play it. While this switching display resolutions works well most of the time, some hardware & drivers don't handle it as well. Sometimes using Alt + Tab works, minimizing the game & bringing up your desktop, but when the game includes it you're usually better off using in-game controls for things like setting volume levels -- it's not a bad habit to get into, using those controls or settings, since many games allow you to do stuff like set the background sound track & FX levels separately.



.......................Moderator Comment....................

Thanks for your feedback Mike.

nice, a more "modern" version of Starashes Sawoid with some extra gimmick but not as easy and with so many extra lives ... - but it will take some time to get used to it (appearance/gui, handling)

LOVE THIS GAME!! Thanks GGOTD for this awesome game. I've not played this type in awhile and forgot how much fun it can be to 'waste' some time with. Downloaded and installed with Win7 64bit without problems. I've missed not having a game on Saturdays but this makes up for it! :) Thanks Alawar for creating great graphics and awesome games.


.......................Moderator Comment....................



I agree with you. It's a pity Arkanoids arn't as popular as they used to be. There aren't many commercial versions created these days. The last two I purchased were Shatter and a cross between Magic Ball and Strike Ball, called Mega World Smash. Shatter is brilliant, Mega World smash is just more of the same you expect of that style of game.

These breakout game are my favorite time wasters and this one has a lot of interesting things going on. Well worth downloading. Now that said, I did have a glitch that could simply be on my computer. I needed to lower the volume during game play so I pressed the "windows" button on keyboard and could not get back from the black screen it went to. Tried "esc" key and it went to an abnormally large windows explorer screen with my mouse pointer stuck in the top left corner. I had to do the "cntrl, alt del" to log off my computer to get things back to normal.
As for the suggestion (If you have technical problems or suggestions on our project, please leave us a note in our forums.)
That only works if you are registered and I don't wish to register simply to state a problem.

..........................Moderator comment.................

Once the giveaway is over, it's unlikely anyone will visit this page again. That's why I suggest posting in the forums. Surely a few moments of your time registering an account in the forums is worth it; especially if you get a decent game that you like and it stops working, or one that you fancy, but you can't get it to work. There's a nice bunch of regulars that post in the forums who are very helpful. You don't get any spam from the site; and apart from my initial registration email I've never had another email from the giveaway team since registering January 2007.

Great. It works. I like it. No adware or toolbar or such one.
Thank you. More of this!

Scanned AlawarActionBall2\Setup.exe with Avira Free Antivirus and got
[DETECTION] Is the TR/Crypt.TPM.Gen Trojan and this is twice that it has happened.


.....................Moderator comment.............................


The giveaway team have never given away a game that has contained a virus or other malware. you are saying that both todays and last weeks games are infected. Basically you 'ARE' getting a false positive. Probably caused due to the new security. It can be mistaken for a trojan by some AV software, especially free ones.

I absolutely love this game!!!!!!! It reminded me a little bit of the game "Breakout" that I played when I was a teenager, only it had really spectacular graphics and was more entertaining than a little ball just hitting a paddle and going up and down. I really liked how bright the colors were, but as one of the previous players mentioned it would have been nice if the music was a little more upbeat. This time, before I even started to download or install the game, I first turned off SONAR on Norton and then had no problems at all with the wrapper. In fact, Norton even asked me how long to turn off SONAR, and when I went back to check I found it had indeed turned it back on like I specified. The only other thing that I would like to see improved might be the directions a little bit. Since I do not usually play these sort of games it was a little bit hard for me to figure out all the moves at first, and I think the developers could be a little clearer for complete Novices like myself. Other than that I had no problem playing, and when I finally exited by choice I had not lost any lives and had killed 8 robots - which was a great stress buster. Thank you very much for the game, and also for last weeks game as well. I am finally starting to really get the hang of that one and I think that while Hidden Object games will always be my favorite, these arcade games are definitely much more fun than I thought they were and I will definitely be playing more of them in the future!!!!!!!!!!!! STORM


........................Moderator Comment...........................

Thankyou for your feedback Storm. :)

Cool Game. But why did my icons change on my desktop after playing it?


........................Moderator Comment......................

Right Click on the exe file and select properties. Then click on the Compatibility tab and ensure that the disable desktop composition isn't checked. The only other explanation ios that you may have your monitor settings set to a display resolution that isn't compatible with the game.

I had no problems with desktop shortcuts moving.

Downloaded/installed fine on Vista 64-bit.

This is a pretty great game!

The game options are fine and helpful/useful.

The graphics are nice and the 3D is good without being overdone.

The sound effects are all right. Got a little too cartoonish at times, but usually were fine.

I didn't really care much for the music, would prefer something more energetic or electronic, something different.

The ball physics are pretty good, much better than the Saws Ashes arkanoids. The ball speeds up when you hit it at an angle and slows down when you hit it straight on. Multiple balls go at different speeds.

I like the power-ups, they're done well enough, don't make the game too easy. The bosses are cool, and the bonus levels are a nice change of pace.

It's challenging enough for me on the default medium level.

I like the angled walls but like it was mentioned above, I sometimes got stuck in a loop, where it kept bouncing off the walls and going up instead of down again, took awhile for the ball to get back into play.

One kind of big problem for me was the lives after you die completely. The game would end, and when I went back into it, I only had one life instead of the starter five you get at the beginning. Probably part of the challenge thing, but I was on a tough level, would lose my one life quickly and would have to go through the whole "oops, you died", score board, new game, choose level, start routine.

It's got a nice arcade feeling to it. Many games say they're an arcade type game, but this really made me feel like I was standing at one of the upright arcade machines.

I'd give it a good 7-8 out of 10.




...........................Moderator Comment............................


Thanks for your feedback Amanda. The single life you get once you've lost all of your lives is to give to the opportunity to continue without having to restart from the beginning.

ok. ive had it. im going to lay off this site for an year and hope to god that the guy whose aproved the new wrapper thing gets rid of it and update it by "NEXT YEAR".

im going to buy incinerate and playrix games thanks to this but. for the games that come out after this - your loss programmers. sorry! my game testing ground just started SUCKING!!!!

............................Moderator Comment.......................

Actually the inclusion of Themida will help towards developers not losing games to trhose who rip the games from the wrapper. Prior to Themida being added most games would be available withinhours on peer to peer sites.

Most community members here will appreciate the reason why the extra security has been added.

This game is already offered as freeware.
http://www.myplaycity.com/action_ball_2/


.........................Moderator comment..........................

You'll see that I've already referenced to MyPlayCity, however the MyPlayCity version has the usual problems such as potential toolbar installations, home page changes and search engine changes, which although not impossible to correct are an annoyance; also all games from MyPlayCity, when closed down will open your browser to MPC's home page. (Not a bad thing, but still an annoyance).

This is a fun game. I have always loved this type of game. I have many different games like this but in my view there can never be too many. My installation process was very different than that of the moderator's. In my case the game was just unzipped to a folder of my choice. No start menu items or desktop icons were added. This is fine with me, in fact I prefer this over a normal installation. If you like this game you won't regret getting this one. Thank you so much GGAOTD team for all that you do for us. Thank you and welcome back to the publisher, Alawar Entertainment.

Installation:


The game downloads as a 16.7MB zip file that unpacks to a read me that contains the terms and conditions and a wrapped dual activation and set up module. It's now protected with the security software Themida. For the newcomers amongst today’s users that means the game will be registered once it’s gone through the set up process, so there’s no registering the game with an activation code. Please note contrary to what some would have you believe Themida is not malware and does not leave any traces of the softwatre on your computer once the game has been installed. Please read my note at the end of the review for further details, especially if you are having problems installing the game.

The game installs to:

C:\Games\ActionBall2\actionball 2.exe


The installed game is 15.6MB in size. There is no shortcuts installed, so make a note of where you install the game to. You can choose to install to the default position or choose your own path. The game should work on all windows operating systems from XP onwards. (I’ve tested it on XP Pro with SP3 32 bit, Vista Home Premium SP1 64 bit and Win 7 Pro and Ultimate 64 bit). If you miss todays giveaway you can get it 24/7 from MyPlayCity See near end of the review for a download link.

Introduction

Action Ball 2 is a no-holds barred arcade game that blends the hottest brick-busting action you've ever seen with the thrilling battles of space shooters. As you use one of four selectable paddles to hit one or more balls toward eye-dazzling arrays of destructible objects, you'll also have to battle four new robots that are out to foil your efforts. One of the robots repairs destroyed bricks while another fires missiles at your paddle!

Action Ball 2 comes with more than 30 bonuses to capture and use, although not all of them are helpful. You can also apply four upgrades to your paddle, making you an unstoppable force as you battle your way to the final showdown. You'll also enjoy the improved level design, which is more clever this time through and features challenges not seen in other Breakout hits. So download Action Ball 2 today. We believe you'll find it's one of the most addictive games you've ever played!

Reference accessed HERE August 2012

The Game:

The precursor to Actionball 2 called Actionball Deluxe used to be in my top 10 all time favorite arkanoids.; it was one of the first 3D arkanoids that actually game me a challenge compared to the likes of the Magic Ball series (now called Smash Ball Frenzy), the Strikeball series and others such as Neoball, Roboball and Timebreaker.

Most 3D style arkanoid/breakouts are easy compared to the 2D versions (IMHO). Actionball Deluxe and to a slightly lesser extent Actionball 2 are a little more challenging than most other 3D arkanoids apart from maybe Incrediball: The Seven Sapphires and a few others that I can't remember at this moment in time. :)

As with all breakouts the basic gameplay involves keeping a ball or balls in play until you've destroyed all of the bricks on the game arena. You are aided in this by power-up's that appear when you destroy certain bricks. Power-up’s are the type that remain until you've used up the ammo or in the case of ball changes, and force fields are permanent until you either lose a ball or hit a force field. You can accumulate as many force fields as you can collect power up tokens as they drop. All power-up's are upgradable, but you have to collect points to upgrade them. Some power-up's cannot be upgraded at the beginning of the game, you have to unlock the upgrades as you progress through the levels.

After every three or four levels you get to play a mini game where you have to stop falling pieces from reaching the bottom. You have a Gatling gun to destroy them but you must collect power-up’s to ensure you have enough bullets to complete the task. This is a timed event. You can see how much time you have via the bar at the top of the game arena. For every 25 robot ships you destroy, you will get an extra life, infrequently there are also power ups that give you an extra life. The best place to destroy robot ships is in the mini game. There are several different types of robot ships each with a different function. Some repair bricks that you have damaged, others replace bricks and others will shoot rockets at your bat and others shoot rockets at other robot ships (this is activated by a power up (though I may be confusing it with the original). some power-up's are pretty rare others more frequent..

Every fifth or sixth level you have a boss fight where you have to destroy a large robot ship. These can be quite difficult to kill. Try and earn at least one extra life before getting to your first boss battle. I've posted some videos of gameplay that demonstrate normal game play, the mini game and boss battle.

I've listed what I consider the Pro's and Con's of Actionball 2 below. There aren't many Con's IMO, which is why I consider this one of the better breakouts available. It's just a pity number 3 occurs occasionally.






Pro's:

1) ... Excellent choice of Power-Up's

2) ... Not too easy (there's three levels of difficulty)

3) ... Ability to upgrade Power -Up's

4) ... Bonus Rounds (Mini Game) included

5) ... Challenging Boss Battles

6) ... Generous number of levels

.


Con's:

1) ... Cannot use more than 6 letters for profile name

2) ... No level editor

3) ... Sometimes the ball gets stuck in a loop - usually this is cleared when a robot appears, but sometimes no robots appear and you have to restart the level.

Classic Breakout Action:

Action Ball 2 picks up where its predecessor left off with even more intense 3-D Breakout styled action. Maneuver your paddle along the bottom of the screen with your mouse and keep that ball from passing by. Destroy all of the bricks on each level before you run out of lives and advance to ever more complex level designs.
Keep an eye out for the more than 30 powerful bonuses you can catch with your paddle to make things a bit easier. Utilize such enhancements as explosive balls, multi-ball, and attraction, or bring the fight to the enemy with various weapons, like machine guns, cannons, or the powerful laser.

Test Your Reflexes

With scores of enemies and power-ups to keep track of, you'll have your hands full as you try to keep track of that pesky ball and finish each level as quickly as possible. Complete the levels and earn upgrade points to increase the size of you paddle, the damage your weapons inflict, and the amount of ammo you can carry.
Enjoy special bonus rounds every few levels and rack up some extra lives, because you're going to need them if you have any hope of coming out the victor in the epic boss battles. Put your dexterity to the test and enjoy hours of entertaining gameplay.

Reference accessed HERE August 2012

Features

Upgreadable power-ups

150 Levels To Conquer!

5 Bosses To Defeat!

4 Paddles To Choose From!

More Than 30 Bonus Items!


Images & Video:

You can see videos of game play HERE
, HERE
, and HERE as well as a slideshow HERE






Reviews:

I couldn't find many reviews of the game.
THIS one is from Big Fish Games and includes users opinions of the game.

Conclusion

Actionball is a well made breakout with enough game play to keep any arkanoid fan happy for several days. A combination of 150 challenging levels interdispersed with a mini game and boss battles as well as upgradable power ups makes for a very decent 3D arkanoid/breakout, which I'd go as far as to say is one of the best of its kind. If you like this I highly recommend the original Actionball Deluxe (Actionball plus it's expansion, with 200 levels of breakout mayhem) from Alawar, one of the very first 3D arkanoids I ever played.

Scoring

Gameplay - 9
Graphics - 9
Audio - 7
Re-playability - 8

Total = 33 out of 40 which equates to approx 8.3 (or 82.5%)

I am a little biased as I used to be obsessed with arkanoid breakouts. At one point that's all I used to play to the exclusion of all my other arcade games apart from maybe the odd space shooter (shmup). I've lost count of the number of breakouts I've owned over the years. Totaling over 200 (though I've given away many of them over the years, only retaining the best of them (Ricochet Infinity, Acky's XP Breakout, Incrediball: The Seven Sapphires, Magic Ball 3 & 4, Strikeball 3, Clash, Hyperballoid 2, Shatter plus others too numerous to mention here.

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Suggestions and Helpl>

If you have ANY problems running the game please refer to the FAQ's over in the forums. You can access the FAQ's HERE.



If you have any problems later in the day when most visitors have already been and gone, please post an additional comment over in the forums in the thread I've created HERE










Alawar has changed it's free game of the month to Land of Runes. There's no free Realore game this week.





As far as I know there's only one Indie bundle still live at the moment Called The Indie Gala VI bundle. There will be another Indie royaale bundle starting in less thanm a week. you can find details of all bundles over in the forums. The Indie Gala bundle ends later today. (Midnight GMT Sunday)


Indie Gala VII





I'd also check the Free Games Synopsis which has most of the games listed in the forums, though I've not updated it since before Christmas (week 100), so there are a lot of games not listed (we are on Week 162), but you can find these by sifting through the Game Discussion Forum and specifically looking for the free games project posts which always start with a Week number. There have been several excellent freeware space shooters posted recently since I last updated the synopsis. The list below isn't exhaustive. i've only selected those games that have been posted over the past several weeks. There are loads more hidden in the game discussion forums from week 100 to the present (week 162).














Similar Breakout/Arkanoid Games available for freel>



There are hundreds of breakouts available on the net. The few suggestions I've listed below only scratch the surface but are amongst my favorites. (I have over 200 breakouts in my games library). There have been few new releases over the last three or four years apart from Shatter, Actionball 2, Hyperballoid 2 and Magicball 4 (all the Magicball series had a name change a couple of years ago to Smashball for some unknown reason)

As 3D arkanoids go Egyptoid is reasonably challenging when you compare it to the likes of the Magic Ball series which are very easy by comparison. I've listed a few below that you can purchase, though Actionball 2 and Hyperballoid 2 can now also be downloaded for free from MyPlayCity, but despite unchecking the toolbar and home page hijack check boxes I still got a MyPlaycity toolbar installed when I recently installed the MyPlayCity version of hyperballoid 2 (I think I may have given away my activation code for this game some time ago) so I would urge you to support the developers of these games by purchasing them if you can afford to.


Incrediball: The Seven Sapphires




Action Ball 2






Nuclear Ball




Nuclear Ball 2





Gem Ball

There are of course many more arkanoids, two of the best include Ricochet Infinity and Acky’s XP Breakout as well as more recent releases such as Shatter. You won’t find these free unless you go to ‘illegal’ peer to peer sites but you will find lots of arkanoid/breakouts over at MyPlayCity and other free games sites like Gametop and FreeGamePick. Do watch out for the toolbars and home page hijacks when using these sites though. A couple of the ones I list above such as Nuclear Ball and Gem ball may be amongst the freebies though they have had name changes (Nuclear Ball changes to A Ball). Caiman games also has loads of freeware breakouts, almost 150 of them, which you can find HERE. The following has been tagged onto this review from a previous breakout giveaway. you'll find some repeat statements which I've not got the time to remove, so please forgive me for the duplicate postings. ;-)


You'll find loads of Arkanoid/breakouts HERE, HERE (Giveaway forums) and HERE (Caimans – almost 200 2D and 3D breakout games, though the download section is deactivated at the moment for reasons I've already mentioned)

HERE

You can also download a previous gamegiveaway Sawnoid every day for free over at Gametop as well as several others such as A-Ball (which is also known as Nuclear Ball), Geometry Ball, Scaraball, Cosmoball plus others, though you will get your browser opening every time you shut the game down. Thankfully this is one of the games they have had for quite some time so there’s no tool bar or home page tick boxes to bother with, but just in case they've changed it since I last checked make sure when you are installing the game that you watch each step of the installation wizard.



You’ll also find quite a few (the last time I counter there were at least 13) titles over at MyPlayCity HERE, that now include several of Alawars breakouts such as all of the Strike Ball games (Strikeball, Strikeball 2 and Strikeball 3), as well as one of my early favorites called Actionball Deluxe and it's sequel (todays's giveaway) Actionball 2; oh yeah and not forgetting the second Hyperballoid game, which in my opinion was a big improvement on the original despite the first one having a massive number of levels (over a thousand) with gorgeous graphics called (not surprisingly) Hyperballoid Complete Edition (or if you purchase it from Big fish Hyperballoid Gold edition) - the down side w.r.t. the original, was that even with the speed up power-ups, the ball used to go too slow for me, (however; GMMan did create a speed-up mod for me); there's also previous giveaways (though not Alawar games) such as Egypt Ball and Egyptian Ball as well as several others that you can download for free. I recommend all of the Alawar titles especially Hyperballoid 2 (Which has an editor for making more levels - there may be custom made levels to download via Alawars site, but I've not checked in some time) and the original Actionball Deluxe (the sequel also has upgradeable power-ups) and Strikeball 3 (The third in the series is similar to the earlier Magic Ball games {Magic Ball 2} but with better graphics and power ups that are also upgradeable, plus the game is slightly more challenging than any of the Magic Ball series (which for some reason Alawar decided to change the name from Magic Ball to Smashball Frenzy)). Unfortunately the best (IMO) arkanoid/breakouts such as Ricochet infinity, Acky's XP Breakout, Reaxxion and Shatter are not available for free via any of the free game sites apart from illegal ones. You can purchase Shatter from Steam for £6.99, though during the big sales over the summer and Christmas period and maybe thanksgiving you can get up to 75% off. Both Ricochet infinity and Acky's XP Breakout have editors and for the former thousands (literally well over 60 000) of downloadable levels for free. There are also free level packs for Acky's XP Breakout, but not to the same extent as Ricochet. you download the levels for ricochet directly from the game and can upload your own creation from the game as well (which probably explains why there are so many - all the levels are graded for game play, graphics etc and get a score of A to D with +'s and -'s (for example B+; though the best of the best are starred as well)

ps. You'll find Actionball 2 for free over at MyPlayCity as well as the original Actionball Deluxe






Please note that if you get any games from Gametop or MyPlayCity you need to watch out for toolbar installations and home page hijacks. Just un-check the check boxes. with MPC games you may need to do this every time you boot a game up unless you create a new shortcut from the installed executable.

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A Request for help:

Developers rely on good feedback to improve their games. If you download this game please take some time once you've played it a while to leave some constructive feedback either positive or negative. The more constructive feedback we get, the more likely developers are going to give more games away. The giveaway site already has a very good standing with the search engines. Developers want their products out there on the WWW, this site has the potential to do that. The game giveaway project gives away on average between 9 to 17 thousand downloads for each game depending upon what genre and how obscure the game is. That’s a lot of homes these games are being downloaded into and a lot of 'potential' cash that’s being lost by the developers. If we get better games because of better feedback, the community are likely to continue to benefit from the generosity of the developers. Satisfied community members are then more likely to visit the home sites of those developers and purchase games that they may not have bothered with before they discovered the developer via the game giveaway site, thus giving the developers more incentives to give away even more decent games.

Please leave some feedback once you’ve checked the game out. It can be positive or negative, but please explain what your reasons were for the feedback you post. You could also leave suggestions for improving the game, for example, this game could do with more block types for the levels editor, add more power-ups, describing the ones you think would be suitable, add some mini games (which seem all the rage in some arcade games now) or enable the user to be able to change the in game music easily.

Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment.

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

A note about Themida:

You can read all about Themida over at the developers site HERE
Or via other sites that review Themida HERE
? HERE

Basically Themida was added to the wrapper in an attempt to protect the giveaways from those that wanted to keep an executable that could be installed 24/7 and still be registered. It was really easy before Themida was introduced, now, unless you are very adept at coding it's not so easy to rip the giveaways off, which in my opinion is a good thing as developers will feel more secure w.r.t. Their software isn't being shared for free on Peer to Pweer sites (though I'm sure you will find most softwares readily available for free if you want to risk infecting your computer with all sorts of malware.

Some community members believe that Themida is going to harm their computers or leave nasty remnants behind once the giveaway has been installed. This is absolutely untrue. Themida is totally removed once you've installed the game. It's only there in the wrapper to (as I've already said) to protect the contents.

Community members have quite rightly pointed out that Themida has been used to hide malware from security software. Its that good securtity software can't see what's inside, so opening up the potential to infect computers. That said, all giveaways are throughly checked for malware with several anti malware suites. There has never been one giveaway (either game or application) that has been infected since the project started in October 2006. That's well over 2500 programs, so its up to you to decide whether you trust the giveaway team or not.

There has been some changes to the wrapper since Themida was added because many users were having problems installing the software. Generally this has now been fixed, but some users are still not able to install the games and applications. There is a way around this. Basically you will need to restart your computer and during boot up select the option for starting in safe mode (I know it's not advisable under normal conditions, but we know that the game giveaway team have throughly tested the game for possible threats, so you are 99.9% guaranteed that the software is safe. Once in safe mode install the game then reboot to normal mode. Before you do any of this I'd create a restore point.