Game Giveaway of the Day

#1

Aquaball

In Brief

Aquaball is breakout/arkanoid game with an aqua theme and an oval arena released in 2007. The game has 150 levels plus five bonus games that are unlocked firstly by collecting the games balls at the end of each level and unlocking new bonus games by collecting the treasure that drops when you break a brick.

Check out the end of my review for links to other arkanoid/breakout games both free and commercial.

Introduction:

Welcome to AquaBall, dear player! If you are looking for some entertaining adventure this game is definitely for you! Together with your nice and cute machine you dive into the underwater world, full of various treasures and secrets. Certainly, the owner doesn't want them to be found easily so the chests are locked with utmost care. Surely, that's not the problem for the treasure hunter like you! Just break all the barriers and blow up all the locks that block your way to the desire treasures! Likely, you have the ball that can do all hard work for you - just point it to the right direction with your powerful machine. Think AquaBall is too boring and predictable? Not at least! While progressing in the game you'll be supplied with all kinds of bonuses starting from small coins and finishing with extra lives.

Do your best and catch only those that can be useful while hunting for treasures. Remember, you can enlarge you paddle or the ball, catch the magnet to set the trajectory and fire the ball to perform the super damage to the chests! Triple bonus will definitely make you happy as 3 balls are always better than one. Moreover, you don't have to catch all three - leave just one but be sure it will touch the paddle. If not, you lose 1 life. In the beginning you have only 3 of them so be particularly careful about it. What are you waiting for? Listen to the energetic music and win every level! Download AquaBall right now absolutely for free and find all treasures under the water!

Reference accessed HERE. 21th Aug 2016

Suggestions:

If you like or don't like today's game please give some feedback detailing why you like or don't like the game; for example, how it could be improved from your point of view. If you don't like this genre at all, please explain why, especially if you give it a thumbs down. There are still thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e. you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content such as mini games, or a level editor that you would like to see or improved graphics, changing the menu system, adding camera controls or some other aspect of the game that would make it more appealing to you. Giving such feedback instead of saying nothing or just saying this game is rubbish may bring more developers to the site, which could mean more and better games. Would you give away thousands of copies of a game away to a community that complains all the time instead of giving useful feedback? It only takes a few moments of your time. This site could be transformed if only the community would be more forthcoming in their opinions of the games they are getting for free.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can still get the game free via MyPlayCity HERE, though you will get the checkboxes appearing unlike todays giveaway. Those have been removed for todays giveaway. You can also purchase the game via Alawar (the original distibutor of the game or Big Fish games.

Installation:

The game downloads as a 16.7 MB zip file that unpacks to a setup, setup.gcd (security wrapper) and read-me and installs to the following path by default unless you chose to install to a different path from the main installation. Those with multiple hard drives are able to save games on any drive they wish:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\AquaBall

Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop, three of which i.e. The link to MyPlayCity Games, Play Online Games and the Free to Play shortcut for Stormfall can be safely deleted. The game uses 34.9 MB of hard drive space not counting save data.

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting 'Aquaball' to work please visit the problems section, which I've now incorporated into the FAQ's thread, and which you can find HERE, alternatively visit the Big Fish forums HERE. If you can't find anything in the forums, check the reviews via the link above or contact Steam support for help.

The Game:

For a while this was one of my favorite breakout games. I purchased it about 9 years ago when breakout games were one my favorite choice's when it came to arcade games (breakouts and shmup's) and I played it for months, together with several others (Magic Ball, Neoball, Strikeball, Hyperballoid , Fizzball, Ricochet Lost Worlds, Acky's XP Breakout, Breakquest, DX Ball, Poing, Ultranium 4 and 5 as well as loads more.

Aquaball is a traditional breakout game with all of the usual things you'd expect from a breakout i.e. differnt brick types, power ups, difficulty levels (3), bonus games etc, though it does have a non-traditional arena. The oval shaped arena gives ball mechanics a new twist to the game. Newtonian physics still apply, but the oval shaped area does lend itself to a more random ball bounce. There are 36 help pages detailing the 23 power-ups you'll discover as you play Aquaball, for example the aqua gun that fires an expanding ring of water bullets or the acid ball that turns all of the balls into acidic balls that dissolve all bricks in its way, even those that require more than one hit or directional hits and even those classed as indestructible in the help section. Some power-ups are cumulative, such as the ball accelerator and decellorators. Others are active until another power up has been acquired, for example the directional power up ( gives you the rebound path of the ball when the ball is near the paddle), others only last for a specific timefor example the treasure magnet and the fire and acid balls. there's no indication in game as to when a power-up becomes inactive, but with time you get to know how long they last. Others such as the aqua gun, missile launcher, gun, laser and bomb are limited in the number of times you can use them. To activate these you need to press the left mouse button; for example, clicking the mouse button when the bomb is active will leave one of the three bombs available in the arena where you click the mouse button, so choose your moment carefully to maximise the effect of the bombs as they do have a limited area of destruction.

You can always tell which power up is active because the symbol for the power up is stamped in the centre of the paddle. Power-ups do not transfer to the next level. When a brick is destroyed it will sometimes drop a power-up but more often it drops treasures in the form of diamonds, gold bars or coins. The latter are more common, the former the least common. To add these to your score you must capture them with your paddle; do however be aware that you may lose a ball (life) if you concentrate to much or exclusively on collecting the treasure dropping from destroyed bricks instead of keeping an eye on the balls direction. Usually at the start of a game it is easier to collect these treasures due to the ball staying above the paddle area for longer due to rebounds from the number of bricks still available in the arena. There are also descriptions of all of the bricks (many with a marine theme) found in the game via the help section which you can find in the options menu; you can access the main menu or the options menu at any time by clicking the right mouse button or the keyboards escape key. This effectivelty brings up the main menu plus a continue button. Some of the bricks you'll encounter during game play include the one hit star fish, treasure chests that require three hits, or the shells that require you to hit the opening to break them; however, all brick types can be destroyed with just one hit, even those classed as undestructible by hitting them with the ball when certain power-ups are active for example the laser or the acid and fire balls. There are several more interesting bricks that require more than just an hit from the ball, for example the key and lock, where you have to match the coloured keys to the correct coloured locks. Others such as the trident fork have to be hit in a certain direction (as already mentioned with the shell). You have 150 levels to work through in groups of five levels. each group with a different theme. Treaure chests come in two colors, one contains gold/points and the other contains power ups.

When you complete a level the number of ball in play are added to the bonus area at the top right of the arena, so it's useful to have collected the ball duplicator, which splits your single ball into three balls, all of which will be added to the bonus section if you manage to keep them in play until the end of the level. Once only a few bricks are left, a silver key may appear after a short while; collecting this will end the level without having to collect the few bricks that remain as they can be frustratingly difficult to remove, especially with the unusual arena shape, and moreso if you are playing the game on easy with a decellarator power-up active, (which means the ball speed will be excruciatingly slow); however, if you wish to increase your capital it is advised to ignore the silver key and destroy all bricks so as to increase the number of treasures collected. When you've collected 10 balls you win a bonus game of which there are five different ones; however, at the start of the game only one of these is unlocked. To unlock a new bonus game you need to collect a specific amount of treasure, for example you will continue to receive the first bonus game (which is an easy memory game), every time you've collected 10 balls until you've unlocked the next bonus game. To unlock the second bonus game you need to acquire a total capital of 258 treasures and for the third, fourth and fifth, even more. I've not played the game in several years so have forgotten what other bonus games are available or how much treasure you require to unlock them. Capital is related to the number of treasures you collect and not the amount that each treasure is worth; i.e. over one level you may collect (for example) 15 different treasures that fall from breaking bricks, (though each level has the potential to drop more; usually the number of bricks that are present). Collecting these treasures may score you several hundred or even well over a thousand points per level, especially if you managed to collect diamonds as well, but your capital score will only be the number of treasures you've collected, i.e. in the example 15. As you progress through the levels if you want to unlock a new bonus game you need to capture as many of the falling treasures as you can, but do be aware you also need to keep the ball in play otherwise you'll lose a life.

You start the game with three lives, but can add more lives by collecting the heart shaped power up. That said, there is a limit to the number of extra lives you can collect. If my memory serves me, I think it was 5 lives, but it could be more or less (though not less than four)? The basic premise is that the more treasure you collect for each level, the quicker you'll unlock new bonus levels. Remember also, that keeping more than one ball in play for each level will unlock the bonus game faster. There are three levels of difficulty, easy, medium and hard. The difference between them is in the ball speed. Easy has the slowest ball speed, hard the fastest. If you've played the ocassional breakout medium is the level i recommend as playing it on easy may become frustrating. if you've played many breakouts and consider yourself good at the game I highly recommend you play on hard as the ball speed is significantly faster and does help to make the game more challenging. for those new to breakouts easy would be recommended. If you want to increase or decrease the difficulty, you cannot do so in a game already started, you have to create a new profile. It appears that you can create an unlimited number of profiles (I created 20 just to see). You can exit a game at any point and when booting up the game again you are given the option of returning to the exact position you left, or starting at the beginning of one of the sections divided into five games, for example if you've unlocked 24 levels you can select to start from level 1, level 6, level 11, level 16 or level 21, but not any of the other levels.

Good luck folks!

Review by Whiterabbit-uk - 21th Aug 2016

Other Reviews and Videos:

You can read other users reviews about Aquaball over on Big Fish Games HERE , or watch some videos of gameplay HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE

Conclusion:

Aquaball is a decent breakout clone with some original features such as the oval arena, and some unusual power ups, plus the bonus games that are unlocked on your journey to complete all 150 levels. If you like breakouts, I highly recommend this game. with three levels of difficulty, most breakout fans will find a level they are comfortable with. Once you've chosen a difficulty you are locked into that difficulty unless you restart the game rrom one of the split level sections. This ensures you don't have to restart the game from the beginning, which is a problem with many breakouts when restarting a game.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving Aquaball minus the checkboxes, and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for providing a safe environment to download free games.

Useful Information:

The problems section that used to be posted here in the Game review is now included in the Game Discussion FAQ's thread; which you can find HERE.

I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly round up of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

The latest free game over on Origin is still Nox. Nox is an action role-playing game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Electronic Arts in 2000 for Microsoft Windows. It details the story of Jack, a young man from Earth who is pulled into a high fantasy parallel universe and has to defeat the evil sorceress Hecubah and her army of Necromancers to return home. Depending on the player's choice of character class at the beginning of the game (warrior, conjurer, or wizard), the game follows three largely different linear story lines, each leading to its unique ending. If you've ever played the early RPG's such as Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale or the early Fallout series and liked them, you'll probably like this game as well. It's 16 year sold now, but still looks pretty good for it's age. This type of game has held it's appeal and looks far more than the early first person games. I highly recommend it..

You can get it HERE. Please note that you do require the Origin game platform to be able to download and install the game.

If you are having problems installing the game check the thread I've linked to above. If you can't find any fixes check the comments made by the community below and over the last few weeks for suggestions. Thank you.

If today's game wasn't to your liking, you may find other games either free or for less than the price of a cup of coffee (from your favorite coffee house) via the 'Weekly Roundup of Game Deals' thread which I've posted a link to above, or HERE. Falamid has another dlc for another free to play game available at this time called Fiesta Online: Extension Park. You'll find that deal HERE.

I've also posted a thread over in the forums called 'Arkanoids and Breakouts: A list of decent freeware (and not so free)' dedicated to arkanoid/breakouts which you can find HERE. It hasn't been updated in over three years, but does list plenty of free breakouts. the links may no longer be valid, but you can easily find those games by googling them. I've also listed some of my commercial breakouts that are well worth purchasing if you love breakouts. There are loads of online game sites where you can find arkanoid/breakout games to play for free, for example , where you'll find 166 breakout games HERE, and 7 pages of breakout games HERE, many of which I'm not familiar with despite, having a collection of over 400 commercial breakouts in my arcade library. you will require the latest version of Adobe flash to play the online games I've linked to. I've checked out several and both sites I've linked to appear safe to visit. Both sites do have advertising on their pages, but you can change the browser to play the games in full screen if you wish.

Aquaball

<blockquote>In Brief</blockquote>
<blockquote>Aquaball is breakout/arkanoid game with an aqua theme and an oval arena released in 2007. The game has 150 levels plus five bonus games that are unlocked firstly by collecting the games balls at the end of each level and unlocking new bonus games by collecting the treasure that drops when you break a brick.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Check out the end of my review for links to other arkanoid/breakout games both free and commercial.</blockquote>

Introduction:

<blockquote>Welcome to AquaBall, dear player! If you are looking for some entertaining adventure this game is definitely for you! Together with your nice and cute machine you dive into the underwater world, full of various treasures and secrets. Certainly, the owner doesn't want them to be found easily so the chests are locked with utmost care. Surely, that's not the problem for the treasure hunter like you! Just break all the barriers and blow up all the locks that block your way to the desire treasures! Likely, you have the ball that can do all hard work for you - just point it to the right direction with your powerful machine. Think AquaBall is too boring and predictable? Not at least! While progressing in the game you'll be supplied with all kinds of bonuses starting from small coins and finishing with extra lives.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Do your best and catch only those that can be useful while hunting for treasures. Remember, you can enlarge you paddle or the ball, catch the magnet to set the trajectory and fire the ball to perform the super damage to the chests! Triple bonus will definitely make you happy as 3 balls are always better than one. Moreover, you don't have to catch all three - leave just one but be sure it will touch the paddle. If not, you lose 1 life. In the beginning you have only 3 of them so be particularly careful about it. What are you waiting for? Listen to the energetic music and win every level! Download AquaBall right now absolutely for free and find all treasures under the water!</blockquote>

<blockquote>Reference accessed <a href="http://www.myplaycity.com/aquaball/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. 21th Aug 2016</blockquote>

Suggestions:
<blockquote>If you like or don't like today's game please give some feedback detailing why you like or don't like the game; for example, how it could be improved from your point of view. If you don't like this genre at all, please explain why, especially if you give it a thumbs down. There are still thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e. you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content such as mini games, or a level editor that you would like to see or improved graphics, changing the menu system, adding camera controls or some other aspect of the game that would make it more appealing to you. Giving such feedback instead of saying nothing or just saying this game is rubbish may bring more developers to the site, which could mean more and better games. Would you give away thousands of copies of a game away to a community that complains all the time instead of giving useful feedback? It only takes a few moments of your time. This site could be transformed if only the community would be more forthcoming in their opinions of the games they are getting for free.</blockquote>

<blockquote>If you miss today's game giveaway you can still get the game free via MyPlayCity <a href="http://www.myplaycity.com/aquaball/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, though you will get the checkboxes appearing unlike todays giveaway. Those have been removed for todays giveaway. You can also purchase the game via Alawar (the original distibutor of the game or Big Fish games.

Installation:
<blockquote>The game downloads as a 16.7 MB zip file that unpacks to a setup, setup.gcd (security wrapper) and read-me and installs to the following path by default unless you chose to install to a different path from the main installation. Those with multiple hard drives are able to save games on any drive they wish:</blockquote>
<blockquote>C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\AquaBall</blockquote>
 <blockquote>Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop, three of which i.e. The link to MyPlayCity Games, Play Online Games and the Free to Play shortcut for Stormfall can be safely deleted. The game uses 34.9 MB of hard drive space not counting save data. </blockquote>

<blockquote>If you have a problem installing or activating or getting 'Aquaball' to work please visit the problems section, which I've now incorporated into the FAQ's thread, and which you can find <a href="http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/11647" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, alternatively visit the Big Fish forums <a href="http://forums.bigfishgames.com/forums/show/56.page" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. If you can't find anything in the forums, check the reviews via the link above or contact Steam support for help.</blockquote>

The Game:
<blockquote>For a while this was one of my favorite breakout games. I purchased it about 9 years ago when breakout games were one my favorite choice's when it came to arcade games (breakouts and shmup's) and I played it for months, together with several others (Magic Ball, Neoball, Strikeball, Hyperballoid , Fizzball, Ricochet Lost Worlds, Acky's XP Breakout, Breakquest, DX Ball, Poing, Ultranium 4 and 5 as well as loads more.</blockquote> 
<blockquote>Aquaball is a traditional breakout game with all of the usual things you'd expect from a breakout i.e. differnt brick types, power ups, difficulty levels (3), bonus games etc, though it does have a non-traditional arena. The oval shaped arena gives ball mechanics a new twist to the game. Newtonian physics still apply, but the oval shaped area does lend itself to a more random ball bounce. There are 36 help pages detailing the 23 power-ups you'll discover as you play Aquaball, for example the aqua gun that fires an expanding ring of water bullets or the acid ball that turns all of the balls into acidic balls that dissolve all bricks in its way, even those that require more than one hit or directional hits and even those classed as indestructible in the help section. Some power-ups are cumulative, such as the ball accelerator and decellorators. Others are active until another power up has been acquired, for example the directional power up ( gives you the rebound path of the ball when the ball is near the paddle), others only last for a specific timefor example the treasure magnet and the fire and acid balls. there's no indication in game as to when a power-up becomes inactive, but with time you get to know how long they last. Others such as the aqua gun, missile launcher, gun, laser and bomb are limited in the number of times you can use them. To activate these you need to press the left mouse button; for example, clicking the mouse button when the bomb is active will leave one of the three bombs available in the arena where you click the mouse button, so choose your moment carefully to maximise the effect of the bombs as they do have a limited area of destruction.</blockquote> 
<ul><blockquote><a href='https://postimg.org/image/oqz9pfsmr/' target='_blank'><img src='https://s13.postimg.org/demo7njxz/level_1_score.jpg' border='0' alt="level 1 score"/></a></blockquote></ul>
<ul><blockquote><a href='https://postimg.org/image/irbils7ub/' target='_blank'><img src='https://s13.postimg.org/727ixtgvr/level_1.jpg' border='0' alt="level 1"/></a></blockquote></ul>

<blockquote>You can always tell which power up is active because the symbol for the power up is stamped in the centre of the paddle. Power-ups do not transfer to the next level. When a brick is destroyed it will sometimes drop a power-up but more often it drops treasures in the form of diamonds, gold bars or coins. The latter are more common, the former the least common. To add these to your score you must capture them with your paddle; do however be aware that you may lose a ball (life) if you concentrate to much or exclusively on collecting the treasure dropping from destroyed bricks instead of keeping an eye on the balls direction. Usually at the start of a game it is easier to collect these treasures due to the ball staying above the paddle area for longer due to rebounds from the number of bricks still available in the arena. There are also descriptions of all of the bricks (many with a marine theme) found in the game via the help section which you can find in the options menu; you can access the main menu or the options menu at any time by clicking the right mouse button or the keyboards escape key. This effectivelty brings up the main menu plus a continue button. Some of the bricks you'll encounter during game play include the one hit star fish, treasure chests that require three hits, or the shells that require you to hit the opening to break them; however, all brick types can be destroyed with just one hit, even those classed as undestructible by hitting them with the ball when certain power-ups are active for example the laser or the acid and fire balls. There are several more interesting bricks that require more than just an hit from the ball, for example the key and lock, where you have to match the coloured keys to the correct coloured locks. Others such as the trident fork have to be hit in a certain direction (as already mentioned with the shell). You have 150 levels to work through in groups of five levels. each group with a different theme. Treaure chests come in two colors, one contains gold/points and the other contains power ups.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When you complete a level the number of ball in play are added to the bonus area at the top right of the arena, so it's useful to have collected the ball duplicator, which splits your single ball into three balls, all of which will be added to the bonus section if you manage to keep them in play until the end of the level. Once only a few bricks are left, a silver key may appear after a short while; collecting this will end the level without having to collect the few bricks that remain as they can be frustratingly difficult to remove, especially with the unusual arena shape, and moreso if you are playing the game on easy with a decellarator power-up active, (which means the ball speed will be excruciatingly slow); however, if you wish to increase your capital it is advised to ignore the silver key and destroy all bricks so as to increase the number of treasures collected. When you've collected 10 balls you win a bonus game of which there are five different ones; however, at the start of the game only one of these is unlocked. To unlock a new bonus game you need to collect a specific amount of treasure, for example you will continue to receive the first bonus game (which is an easy memory game), every time you've collected 10 balls until you've unlocked the next bonus game. To unlock the second bonus game you need to acquire a total capital of 258 treasures and for the third, fourth and fifth, even more. I've not played the game in several years so have forgotten what other bonus games are available or how much treasure you require to unlock them. Capital is related to the number of treasures you collect and not the amount that each treasure is worth; i.e. over one level you may collect (for example) 15 different treasures that fall from breaking bricks, (though each level has the potential to drop more; usually the number of bricks that are present). Collecting these treasures may score you several hundred or even well over a thousand points per level, especially if you managed to collect diamonds as well, but your capital score will only be the number of treasures you've collected, i.e. in the example 15. As you progress through the levels if you want to unlock a new bonus game you need to capture as many of the falling treasures as you can, but do be aware you also need to keep the ball in play otherwise you'll lose a life.</blockquote>

<blockquote>You start the game with three lives, but can add more lives by collecting the heart shaped power up. That said, there is a limit to the number of extra lives you can collect. If my memory serves me, I think it was 5 lives, but it could be more or less (though not less than four)? The basic premise is that the more treasure you collect for each level, the quicker you'll unlock new bonus levels. Remember also, that keeping more than one ball in play for each level will unlock the bonus game faster. There are three levels of difficulty, easy, medium and hard. The difference between them is in the ball speed. Easy has the slowest ball speed, hard the fastest. If you've played the ocassional breakout medium is the level i recommend as playing it on easy may become frustrating. if you've played many breakouts and consider yourself good at the game I highly recommend you play on hard as the ball speed is significantly faster and does help to make the game more challenging. for those new to breakouts easy would be recommended. If you want to increase or decrease the difficulty, you cannot do so in a game already started, you have to create a new profile. It appears that you can create an unlimited number of profiles (I created 20 just to see). You can exit a game at any point and when booting up the game again you are given the option of returning to the exact position you left, or starting at the beginning of one of the sections divided into five games, for example if you've unlocked 24 levels you can select to start from level 1, level 6, level 11, level 16 or level 21, but not any of the other levels.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Good luck folks!</blockquote>

<blockquote>Review by Whiterabbit-uk - 21th Aug 2016</blockquote>

Other Reviews and Videos:

<blockquote>You can read other users reviews about Aquaball over on Big Fish Games <a href="http://www.bigfishgames.com/games/1174/aquaball/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> , or watch some videos of gameplay <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOgNcXxEjMo" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y47PysYJMEo" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkTo-UJX2PA" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd-g5XNRWQo" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmoyMl3Bz0E" rel="nofollow">HERE</a></blockquote>

Conclusion:

<blockquote>Aquaball is a decent breakout clone with some original features such as the oval arena, and some unusual power ups, plus the bonus games that are unlocked on your journey to complete all 150 levels. If you like breakouts, I highly recommend this game. with three levels of difficulty, most breakout fans will find a level they are comfortable with. Once you've chosen a difficulty you are locked into that difficulty unless you restart the game rrom one of the split level sections. This ensures you don't have to restart the game from the beginning, which is a problem with many breakouts when restarting a game.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving Aquaball minus the checkboxes, and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for providing a safe environment to download free games.</blockquote>

Useful Information:

<blockquote>The problems section that used to be posted here in the Game review is now included in the Game Discussion FAQ's thread; which you can find <a href="http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/11647" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>.</blockquote>
 <blockquote> I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly round up of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) <a href="http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/458939#post-569898" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The latest free game over on Origin is still Nox. Nox is an action role-playing game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Electronic Arts in 2000 for Microsoft Windows. It details the story of Jack, a young man from Earth who is pulled into a high fantasy parallel universe and has to defeat the evil sorceress Hecubah and her army of Necromancers to return home. Depending on the player's choice of character class at the beginning of the game (warrior, conjurer, or wizard), the game follows three largely different linear story lines, each leading to its unique ending. If you've ever played the early RPG's such as Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale or the early Fallout series and liked them, you'll probably like this game as well. It's 16 year sold now, but still looks pretty good for it's age. This type of game has held it's appeal and looks far more than the early first person games. I highly recommend it..</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can get it <a href="https://www.origin.com/en-gb/store/free-games/on-the-house" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. Please note that you do require the Origin game platform to be able to download and install the game.</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you are having problems installing the game check the thread I've linked to above. If you can't find any fixes check the comments made by the community below and over the last few weeks for suggestions. Thank you.</blockquote>

<blockquote>If today's game wasn't to your liking, you may find other games either free or for less than the price of a cup of coffee (from your favorite coffee house) via the 'Weekly Roundup of Game Deals' thread which I've posted a link to above, or <a href="http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/458939" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. Falamid has another dlc for another free to play game available at this time called Fiesta Online: Extension Park. You'll find that deal <a href="http://failmid.com/game/fiesta-online-na-100-discount/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I've also posted a thread over in the forums called 'Arkanoids and Breakouts: A list of decent freeware (and not so free)' dedicated to arkanoid/breakouts which you can find <a href="https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2607" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. It hasn't been updated in over three years, but does list plenty of free breakouts. the links may no longer be valid, but you can easily find those games by googling them. I've also listed some of my commercial breakouts that are well worth purchasing if you love breakouts. There are loads of online game sites where you can find arkanoid/breakout games to play for free, for example , where you'll find 166 breakout games <a href="http://www.y8.com/tags/Arkanoid" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, and 7 pages of breakout games <a href="http://arkanoid.freeonlinegames.name/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>, many of which I'm not familiar with despite, having a collection of over 400 commercial breakouts in my arcade library. you will require the latest version of Adobe flash to play the online games I've linked to. I've checked out several and both sites I've linked to appear safe to visit. Both sites do have advertising on their pages, but you can change the browser to play the games in full screen if you wish.</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by Whiterabbit-uk – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)

#30

I've tried to open up this program and get only a splash screen with the message: " press Windows + G for game capture". The game proceeds no further and I am unable to exit the screen. It forced me to shut down the laptop and restart. This not good. Any answers to what could be wrong?

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

Hi Paul, please excuse the very late reply, was busy with family for most of Sunday. Not sure what the problem could be. Check the FAQ's thread that I link to in my review at the top of the comments, or alternatively download the MyPlayCity version. When installing uncheck any checkboxes that appear. You'll basically get the same version as that given away last week.Whether it solves the problem is another matter, but I think it's worth the effort for this excellent breakout.. :)

Reply | Comment by Paul – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#29

Hello;
This afternoon i was astonished when i saw "game offer ended".
I like you work.
I was curious so II have downloaded the game on "myplaycity".
The game is good and original.
I know your work for comments and review is hard and long.
I'm french and i write news with software from giveaway websites in google groups.
Many thanks, because i like giveawaygame website.
Best regards.

Reply | Comment by dec – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#28

Going to have fun with this. Thanks GGOTD, BigFish, and MPC.

Reply | Comment by watcher13 – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Oops, and forgot to thank the developer, Five-BN, and Alawar. Thanks!

Reply | Comment by watcher13 – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#27

HI! All:
NOT INSTALL

Reply | Comment by Eugened – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

#26

A quirky little game but we really like this one! And I know some dislike the myPlayCity opening after play, but it really is simple to close it after.
Mindless fun, and sometimes you need that without having to get deeply involved in a story.

Reply | Comment by Jburt – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#25

I love the game but I hate the MPC "extras". What a rude installation. It places extra icons on the desktop without asking. Opening the browser is a necessary aspect of the program as explained by the moderator. However that does not make it any less annoying. And in the end this is a deal breaker for me. Thank you for the offer but I will pass. Uninstalled via reboot....

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

Hi gpc111, the extra icons can be deleted, with no affect to the game. They do not install any trhing else other than the shortcuts. Once deleted all traces shouls have gone.

Reply | Comment by gpc111 – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#24

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

I will continue to moderate in the morning. hopefully before the giveaway end. need to go to bed. I worked on the reviews and moderation for over 120 hours without a break earlier today and needed a break. If you do have any probelms please follow the links i've provided in my review at the top of the comments and/or read the comments from the community. hopefully someone will have answered any queries you may have. Have a great week folks, to those who missed out on a key from Saturdays game. They will be available tomorrow (monday for a limiteed period, so please do check back later in the day. Thank you.

regards

Whiterrabbit aka Stephen

Reply | Comment by Whiterabbit-uk – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

#23

What "check boxes" do you refer to that you say have been removed?

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

When you install free games from sites such as MPC they have checkboxes that need to be unchecked, otherwise you end up with various extra's such as toolbars added to your browsers, home page changes and even browser changes. All of these are simple enough to regreess, especially if you are a regular computer user, but they can be annoying. they have been removed from the game giveaway versions

Reply | Comment by frank – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#22

Had to use a different address but finally got the downloads. The curser is a little shaky on Air Force but I am not complaining. I wanted to sign in again to say thanks again white rabbit and My play city.

Reply | Comment by skybase – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#21

upon trying to launch it opens "the longest journey", a previous giveaway from here instead of the new gotd offering from myplaycity- this is the second time this has happened with games from here recently....any ideas why and how to fix it?

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

The giveawayoftheday cookies may have become corrupted. and todays game may have been installed into another game. You need to clear your internet cache, then install again. Hope this message got to you before the end of the giveaway.If the giveaway has ended, the version directly from MPC is basically the same, you just have to make sure any check boxes that appear are unchecked.

Reply | Comment by cliff – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#20

Thanks for a second great game today. Aquaball is a fun game. the graphics are a bit outdated but that is understandable due to the age of the game.

Reply | Comment by bobby giovannucci – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#19

Hey Wrascally Wabbit,

Just to let you know.......Ubisoft has changed their game. "The game we offer you is Rayman Origins, a back to the root 2D platformer released in 2011 where you travel across amazing worlds, meet goofy monsters and goes through the most dynamic platforming moments ever." Ubi 30 - Ubisoft Club

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Just GET this game. I have spent hours on end playing this game. The gameplay is awesome. The graphics amazing. I just love, love, love this game. This is the "Fishdom" of the breakout/arkanoid world. Reminds me of the good old days of Alwar giving away games here daily. This was one of the games...And once you play this game, you need to play some Magic Ball or Hyperballoid or Ricochet Lost Worlds. I may have to dig my CDs out of my collection.

Thanks to GGOTD and MPC for the game and hugs to the Wiley Wabbit for his review.

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

Ah yew, i forgot to mention that game. i've already added it to all five of our Ubisoft accounts, lol. Thank you for the heads up. I hope your summer is going well?

regards

Stephen

Reply | Comment by delenn13 – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

#18

Msg: The setup files are corrupted. Please obtains a new copy of the program.

=> not installed...
What is happening?

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

Please read the FAQ's that I've linked to in my review. Usually it's caused by a conflict, usually your security and this is becasue iof the Themida wrapper which some security software see's as a threat becasue Themida code is also used to hide malware, so some software will automatically block anything with Themida, even if it's not a threat. You will need to turn off your security temporarily. If you miss the giveaway, you caj still get the game from MPC, see my review for a link. The game is exactly the same apart from the checkboxes. Just make sure you uncheck any checkbox and you'll get exactly the same game. :)

Reply | Comment by Goupil – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

#17

Thank you very much for the game. Been a while since I played (never was very good at them), but I will give this one a try to see if I can improve on it.

Thank you GGOTD for your continued giveaways.

Reply | Comment by Louis – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#16

I got this game years ago when it was offered and loved it. Several computers later, I'm looking forward to getting it again. Thanks so much!

Reply | Comment by Naomi – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#15

Downloaded very quickly and installed easily, I then removed the various extra desktop links.

Thoroughly enjoyed bashing a ball or two around for about ten minutes even though I didn't really know what I was doing, which is about normal for me with these sort of games.

Thanks GGOTD, Alawar and MPC. I don't mind a web page opening when I close a game I enjoy.

Reply | Comment by Mum – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

#14

Very nice review, well detailed about the things that can be deal breaker like whether have to restart levels from beginning or right at point where left off, access to menu & its settings. Thanks a lot, more reviews this way. Getting both of today's games.

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

I've not had the time or the inclination to write any in depth reviews for quite some time. the negativity of the community has also been a deciding factor as well. Some of these reviews take me several hours of effort. Today's I started the Aquaball and Airfoce reviews last night. Gathering together some screen captures and You Tube videos as well as some introductions. I then got up about 2 hours before the giveaways were due to go live, and started working on Aquaball, but didn't finish it until almost 2am this afternoon. That's over 8 hours of work, the Airfoce review took a lot less time as I didn't put as much effort into it, but still took a good four hours to complete. the advantage with both of these games was that I'd played them both for long periods when they were first released. I purchsed Aquaball from Alawar when it was released in 2007 and I got Airforce Missions from Gametop about 10 years ago and played it to distraction. so I had a lot of memories of both games. I do hope to re-start my more informed reviews again soon. I just have to clear a back-log of other projects so that I can devote more time on these reviews. Mavadelo has kindly set up a review site for me a couple of months ago but so far I've been so distracted with other stuff, mainly family, and legal issues as well as my main computer being offline for over a month due to my daughter pulling the power cord out of the computer in a fit of madness after I'd confiscated her iPad for being mouthy and lazy. The result was a fried motherboard, though it took me a couple of days to figure out it was the MoBo. I wanted the same Mobo, which is now no longer manufactured so I had to wait for a second hand one to appear on ebay which cost me almost £140, which i finally received from Holland when I returned from my vacation last week. (the original cost of the MoBo was much higher) The build has just been completed last night, but I'm too tired to connect it up and see if it works. Once I do i'll have to re- activate windows as well as loads of programs and games because I failed to set up my recovery program the last time I reinstalled windows back in February. When I start posting my reviews over on the site Mavadelo created and which i've linked to in some of my recent posts, i'll be doing my own videos, but for now I just search You Tube.

Very nice review, well detailed about the things that can be deal breaker like whether have to restart levels from beginning or right at point where left off, access to menu & its settings.  Thanks a lot, more reviews this way. Getting both of today's games.

<blockquote>.........................Moderator Comment.............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>I've not had the time or the inclination to write any in depth reviews for quite some time. the negativity of the community has also been a deciding factor as well. Some of these reviews take me several hours of effort. Today's I started the Aquaball and Airfoce reviews last night. Gathering together some screen captures and You Tube videos as well as some introductions. I then got up about 2 hours before the giveaways were due to go live, and started working on Aquaball, but didn't finish it until almost 2am this afternoon. That's over 8 hours of work, the Airfoce review took a lot less time as I didn't put as much effort into it, but still took a good four hours to complete. the advantage with both of these games was that I'd played them both for long periods when they were first released. I purchsed Aquaball from Alawar when it was released in 2007 and I got Airforce Missions from Gametop about 10 years ago and played it to distraction. so I had a lot of memories of both games. I do hope to re-start my more informed reviews again soon. I just have to clear a back-log of other projects so that I can devote more time on these reviews. Mavadelo has kindly set up a review site for me a couple of months ago but so far I've been so distracted with other stuff, mainly family, and legal issues as well as my main computer being offline for over a month due to my daughter pulling the power cord out of the computer in a fit of madness after I'd confiscated her iPad for being mouthy and lazy. The result was a fried motherboard, though it took me a couple of days to figure out it was the MoBo. I wanted the same Mobo, which is now no longer manufactured so I had to wait for a second hand one to appear on ebay which cost me almost £140, which i finally received from Holland when I returned from my vacation last week. (the original cost of the MoBo was much higher) The build has just been completed last night, but I'm too tired to connect it up and see if it works. Once I do i'll have to re- activate windows as well as loads of programs and games because I failed to set up my recovery program the last time I reinstalled windows back in February. When I start posting my reviews over on the site Mavadelo created and which i've linked to in some of my recent posts, i'll be doing my own videos, but for now I just search You Tube. </blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by beergas – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

#13

I wasn't a fan of breakout/arkanoid games "back in the day" (of Atari in the 80s) but this kind of modern versions made me like this genre. Installed and runs w/o problems on Win 7 64bit Home Premium. Used to prefer downloading MPC games from this site bc they would not try to change your browser settings and open mpc website. Now they try to, but at least they still don't require "download assistants" that some people hate to deal with. It's nice to see a conventional giveaway, not a jump-through-the-hoops raffle.

Reply | Comment by JoeJ – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

#12

Thank you! It installed quickly and perfectly. Like others, I haven't played any breakout games for a long, long time, and enjoyed the first few levels of this game I have played. It has a lot of "extras" too, like needing to hit treasure chests 3 times (unlock, open, and empty) to clear them. You can get ball multipliers, and the many balls really keep you going! I will figure out how to use the other "extras" later!
Thanks again.

Reply | Comment by Lisa – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)

#11

Believe it or not, haven't played a breakout game for longer than many here have been alive :), but with the good reviews and the (thank you!) easier acquisition (no steam, no contest, etc.) I thought I'd try it, and am having fun! Overall, I can see this is a well designed breakout game, and give it a thumbs up for those that like these. And now for a red-faced confession:

I'm embarrassed to say I really don't remember much about how to play; I get that I have to launch the ball, catch it when it comes down and hit it back, but not too sure about aiming, about when to click and when to just 'catch' the ball and let it bounce up, etc. The help describes the different pieces well, but doesn't actually give hints about playing, which the rare newbie (like me) to this type of game might be able to use, so if anyone has a good link to a tutorial that would be great.

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

There's no need to be embarrassed. I remember playing the very first ever breakout back in the mid to late 70's while I was serving in the British Army over in Germany. You could play either in a free standing console or a table top console. I spent a fortune on that original game and it hooked me on that genre for the rest of my life. I've purchased hundreds of breakout/arkanoids since those heady days of my late teens and am still facinated by them even tho ugh they are one of the simplest arcade genres available. I think the love of the genre originally stems from my love of pinball games of which I also spent a small fortune as a youth, and which are loosley related to breakouts. I also own hundreds of pinball table games, many of which have been recreated from old classics via the Pinball Arcade (at least 50 plus tables available now, with more being added regularily) , or digitally created pinball tables that have never been real pinball tables via Pinball FX collection of tables (around 50 tables availabe in the collection at this time). I've also just purchased a couple of new collections for example the Pinball HD collection (15 tables) and another collection of digitally remastered classic tables from yesteryear in the Zaccaria Collection (36 tables). All of those are now available via Steam as are other single tables. some of which are also available via GOG.

There are several pinball museums where you can play the machines over in america, for example The Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda which for some reason always reminds me of the fourth Star Trek movie due Star Trek IV: The Voyage home where Chekov aksa police officer "Excuse me, sir. Can you direct me to the naval base in Alameda? It's where they keep the nuclear wessels."
then he emphasizes "Nu-cle-ar wes-sels." there are other pinball museums as well, such as The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, or the Seattle Pinball Museum and the Silverball Museum - Asbury Park, NJ as well as several others, all of which appear to be in the states. i cannot find one in the UK at all, which is a great shame. If i had the money i'd set one up, not for profit, but for the nostalgia and historical value. The US seems to create such museums. I've seen other game type museums that dedicate themselves to the old stand alone consoles. these dedicated enthusiasts spend an inordinate amount of time renovating those old consoles for the public to be able to play them. the only one i've ever visited was when we went to disney in florida. they had a four or five story building crammed with the most amazing console games, manmy of which i remeber from my early 20's and included the early breakouts, star Wars, and of course the seminal Space Invaders. Each floor was dedicated to a period in arcade gaming history. Sadly here in the UK there isn't enough spare cash to create such a wonderland, at least to my knowledge. One of the items on my bucket list (apart from the usual such as visit a place where I can see the Northern or Southern lights, stand in the mouth of an active volcano, visit the Galapagos Islands as well as explore India, South America and the active volcanic area's of Iceland, as well as some of the best tourist places in the US ( for example I want to fly over the Grand Canyon) and climb Mount Fuji in Japan. I also want to vist the pachinko arcades in Japan. Those machines were quite common in arcades in the UK when I was a young kid. I used to love playing them when my grandparents took me on vacation, spending virtually all of my spoending money each day on the things. I also want to learn at leat one other language, either German or Japanese. I lived in Germany for almost 3 years, so would find German easier, but I have a hankering to learn something more exotic. I love Japanese films, especally Samuria films, so learning the language would be useful, lol.

.

The main aim of the game is to basically not lose the ball, so the first rule of a breakout is to make sure you return the ball whenever it bounces towards the out field. Sometimes you will collect a power-up that safely blocks the out field until it has been hit once by a ball.. For todays breakout the next rule is to collect treasure that is dropped when you destroy bricks ( that are in various marine forms such as shells, tridents, chests of gold etc). Collecting these is important because they unlock the mini games that are available. To play a mini game you first have to collect the balls left at the end of a level, which is usually one, but can be more if you happened to catch a power up that splits the ball. These can be as many as three balls to add in one level. Once you've collected 10 balls you open up the bonus game feature, the first bonus game is a memnory game where you have to clear the field of around 40 or so barrels containing various bricks. you get 90 seconds to complete the task. as yet i've not completed it, so don't know if there are any rewards for doing so. The other four mini games are unlocked by collecting treasure. You have to collect specific amounts to unlock each bonus game. Some bricks can be destroyed with just one hit, others need to be hit more than once and some such as shells and tridents need to be hit in particular directions, and in the case of the trident three times in the correct place. Chests contain either treasure or power-ups and require at least three hits to open and drop the treasure; power-up's can also drop from random bricks once destroyed. You can see the different types of bricks and the various power-up's by going into the main menu and selecting help. There are 39 pages covering virtually everything you need to know about this game. I've also attempted to explain about the game-play in my review at the top of the comments.

Aiming follows Newtons laws i.e every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so, if a ball hits a flat surface at 90 degrees, it will bounce off that surface in the opposite direction at 90 degree's. Where the ball hits the paddle can also affect the angle the ball reflects off the paddle, so you should be able to work out approximately where the ball will go via the angle it is going to hit your paddle at and at which position. If the ball hits the paddle directly in the center it will reflect back a exactly the way it came. You can see the paddle is divided into segments. The further from the center, the greater the angle, though none of the angles from the bat are acute. If the paddle is enlarged, more segments appear, making it easier and more accurate. the faster the ball the harder it will be to place your paddle in the position you want it to be so as to find the correct angle. If you aren't familair it may take a little practice (like anything in life), but you'll soon pick up the idea and be able to 'approximately' control where the ball goes to from your paddle. Once it's been reflected elsewhere it really then depends on what bricks are left as to where the ball goes and of course whether or not you have collected a destructive power-up such as the acid ball or fire ball that cut through all bricks, even the indestrucable bricks like a hot knife through butter. Those balls only bounce off the arena walls and the paddle. There is a power up that gives you an indication of where the ball will rebound to;, when it is active a red line will appear showing the direction of travel from the paddle and the reflection it will make. The oval arena does confound the physics a little, but the Newtonian rules still apply, you just need to take into account the curve of the boundary. I hope this helps somewhat?

Believe it or not, haven't played a breakout game for longer than many here have been alive :), but with the good reviews and the (thank you!) easier acquisition (no steam, no contest, etc.) I thought I'd try it, and am having fun!  Overall, I can see this is a well designed breakout game, and give it a thumbs up for those that like these. And now for a red-faced confession:

I'm embarrassed to say I really don't remember much about how to play; I get that I have to launch the ball, catch it when it comes down and hit it back, but not too sure about aiming, about when to click and when to just 'catch' the ball and let it bounce up, etc. The help describes the different pieces well, but doesn't actually give hints about playing, which the rare newbie (like me) to this type of game might be able to use, so if anyone has a good link to a tutorial that would be great.

<blockquote>.........................Moderator Comment.............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>There's no need to be embarrassed. I remember playing the very first ever breakout back in the mid to late 70's while I was serving in the British Army over in Germany. You could play either in a free standing console or a table top console. I spent a fortune on that original game and it hooked me on that genre for the rest of my life. I've purchased hundreds of breakout/arkanoids since those heady days of my late teens and am still facinated by them even tho ugh they are one of the simplest arcade genres available. I think the love of the genre originally stems from my love of pinball games of which I also spent a small fortune as a youth, and which are loosley related to breakouts. I also own hundreds of pinball table games, many of which have been recreated from old classics via the Pinball Arcade (at least 50 plus tables available now, with more being added regularily) , or digitally created pinball tables that have never been real pinball tables via Pinball FX collection of tables (around 50 tables availabe in the collection at this time). I've also just purchased a couple of new collections for example the Pinball HD collection (15 tables) and another collection of digitally remastered classic tables from yesteryear in the Zaccaria Collection (36 tables). All of those are now available via Steam as are other single tables. some of which are also available via GOG.</blockquote>

<blockquote>There are several pinball museums where you can play the machines over in america, for example The Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda which for some reason always reminds me of the fourth Star Trek movie due Star Trek IV: The Voyage home where Chekov aksa police officer "Excuse me, sir. Can you direct me to the naval base in Alameda? It's where they keep the nuclear wessels."
 then he emphasizes "Nu-cle-ar wes-sels." there are other pinball museums as well, such as The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, or the Seattle Pinball Museum and the Silverball Museum - Asbury Park, NJ as well as several others, all of which appear to be in the states. i cannot find one in the UK at all, which is a great shame. If i had the money i'd set one up, not for profit, but for the nostalgia and historical value. The US seems to create such museums. I've seen other game type museums that dedicate themselves to the old stand alone consoles. these dedicated enthusiasts spend an inordinate amount of time renovating those old consoles for the public to be able to play them. the only one i've ever visited was when we went to disney in florida. they had a four or five story building crammed with the most amazing console games, manmy of which i remeber from my early 20's and included the early breakouts, star Wars, and of course the seminal Space Invaders. Each floor was dedicated to a period in arcade gaming history. Sadly here in the UK there isn't enough spare cash to create such a wonderland, at least to my knowledge. One of the items on my bucket list (apart from the usual such as visit a place where I can see the Northern or Southern lights, stand in the mouth of an active volcano, visit the Galapagos Islands as well as explore India, South America and the active volcanic area's of Iceland, as well as some of the best tourist places in the US ( for example I want to fly over the Grand Canyon) and climb Mount Fuji in Japan. I also want to vist the pachinko arcades in Japan. Those machines were quite common in arcades in the UK when I was a young kid. I used to love playing them when my grandparents took me on vacation, spending virtually all of my spoending money each day on the things. I also want to learn at leat one other language, either German or Japanese. I lived in Germany for almost 3 years, so would find German easier, but I have a hankering to learn something more exotic. I love Japanese films, especally Samuria films, so learning the language would be useful, lol.</blockquote>.

<blockquote>The main aim of the game is to basically not lose the ball, so the first rule of a breakout is to make sure you return the ball whenever it bounces towards the out field. Sometimes you will collect a power-up that safely blocks the out field until it has been hit once by a ball.. For todays breakout the next rule is to collect treasure that is dropped when you destroy bricks ( that are in various marine forms such as shells, tridents, chests of gold etc). Collecting these is important because they unlock the mini games that are available. To play a mini game you first have to collect the balls left at the end of a level, which is usually one, but can be more if you happened to catch a power up that splits the ball. These can be as many as three balls to add in one level. Once you've collected 10 balls you open up the bonus game feature, the first bonus game is a memnory game where you have to clear the field of around 40 or so barrels containing various bricks. you get 90 seconds to complete the task. as yet i've not completed it, so don't know if there are any rewards for doing so. The other four mini games are unlocked by collecting treasure. You have to collect specific amounts to unlock each bonus game. Some bricks can be destroyed with just one hit, others need to be hit more than once and some such as shells and tridents need to be hit in particular directions, and in the case of the trident three times in the correct place. Chests contain either treasure or power-ups and require at least three hits to open and drop the treasure; power-up's can also drop from random bricks once destroyed. You can see the different types of bricks and the various power-up's by going into the main menu and selecting help. There are 39 pages covering virtually everything you need to know about this game. I've also attempted to explain about the game-play in my review at the top of the comments. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Aiming follows Newtons laws i.e every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so, if a ball hits a flat surface at 90 degrees, it will bounce off that surface in the opposite direction at 90 degree's. Where the ball hits the paddle can also affect the angle the ball reflects off the paddle, so you should be able to work out approximately where the ball will go via the angle it is going to hit your paddle at and at which position. If the ball hits the paddle directly in the center it will reflect back a exactly the way it came. You can see the paddle is divided into segments. The further from the center, the greater the angle, though none of the angles from the bat are acute. If the paddle is enlarged, more segments appear, making it easier and more accurate. the faster the ball the harder it will be to place your paddle in the position you want it to be so as to find the correct angle. If you aren't familair it may take a little practice (like anything in life), but you'll soon pick up the idea and be able to 'approximately' control where the ball goes to from your paddle. Once it's been reflected elsewhere it really then depends on what bricks are left as to where the ball goes and of course whether or not you have collected a destructive power-up such as the acid ball or fire ball that cut through all bricks, even the indestrucable bricks like a hot knife through butter. Those balls only bounce off the arena walls and the paddle. There is a power up that gives you an indication of where the ball will rebound to;, when it is active a red line will appear showing the direction of travel from the paddle and the reflection it will make. The oval arena does confound the physics a little, but the Newtonian rules still apply, you just need to take into account the curve of the boundary. I hope this helps somewhat?</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by neme – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

neme, Not a pinball museum as such but I believe the Tilt pub/cafe/restaurant in Birmingham (UK!) has a selection of modern machines which one can play.

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

:) thanks for the heads up Cad, I must visit it someday. Nothing like the feel of a real pinball machine. The digital versions are okay, but the atmosphere is missing, and using a keyboard is nothing like the real thing. :)

Reply | Comment by Cad Delworth CEng MBCS CITP – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

Thank you, WR! I kinda instinctively thought that I should catch the 'treasures' though there is no mention of that in the help that I could see, nor was there anything about aiming. So your tips are most welcome! I doubt this will become a favorite genre of mine, but I love that I have this one to break up the monotony! Still never tire of the adventure story/hidden object/puzzles games and some of the better match-3s (like Fishdom Frosty Splash, which I like the best of the Fishdom games because it just goes on and on :)).

BTW, in my misspent youth, I used to play Breakout, etc. on a Motorola Odyssey (not sure you had those in the UK), a contemporary of Atari that you hooked up to your TV (damn, now I really have dated myself!)

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

Thank you for your feedback neme. My wife still thinks I'm a big kid for playing too many games, but I tell her, games are not just for children; especially FPS games and many of the anime digital stories that have very explicit imagery in them. I've always found games a relaxing past time, and more recently they have been pimportant for my pain management and keeping me sane. I'm sure the fact that I played the first breakouts while i was in the army, granted as an advanced teenager (18/19 years old, tells you what my age is as well. :)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/461910/

Reply | Comment by neme – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

This is actually directed at WhiteRabbit ;) hey am in the States WR which I believe you already knew, but not by any of those places you mentioned, but we have a couple pinball places (1 large one) while not as well equipped as some of those you mention, some great classic games! I too LOVE pinball as I was a young 'Pinball Wizard' and still can play a mean game, make people mad that play with me because I can rack up the points lol, but can't believe no ones done one there in the UK, if you ever get a settlement there is a guy local here that works on them and can get them, get in touch and I'll hook you up with him as a supplier, although shipping probably would be through the roof!

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

Hi JBurt, sorry for the very late reply, only just seen your comment. Something I would love to do. Maybe once my kids have left home I'll have spare cash to carry out such a project. Something I'd love to do. Maybe apply for a grant from the lottery, who give away millions to worthwhile causes. I could also try crowd funding; though I have seen similar projects on Kickstarter, that have failed miserably. My primary thoughts would be that it would have to be non-profit making. Maybe voluntary contributions to those visiting the museum.
I happened upon a series of you tube videos HERE a couple of months ago by a guy who called hos site John's Arcade, who posts videos of him restoring arcade machines, visits to other arcade museums and other arcade games stories etc. He's a very interesting guy, with a massive amount of enthusiasm for what he does.

Reply | Comment by Jburt – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#10

Me wants steam gamezz

Reply | Comment by Dave – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-16)

Dave, Steam game yesterday. 2 last week. Some of us want non-Steam games. Hopefully we can co-exist. Plenty of Steam games will be offered here in the future, I'm sure

Reply | Comment by watcher13 – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

#9

Nice game, but I see no reason to download it from GGOTD. I have downloaded many if not all of the games from myplaycity and never had any problems with browser hijacking or additional unwanted software installs.

The positive: surprisingly this is a real giveaway
The negative: GGOTD brought too many competitions in the past instead of free games for everyone.
Even if I´d been interested in some of the titltes I did not enter contest - too much afford, imho a waste of my time and I do not want any additional spamming mails in the future.

Not to forget the irritating name "Game Giveaway OF THE DAY". Go back to your roots or you will fail.

I mean that should overthink your strategie of bringing us free games. I see no reason for visiting your site in the future if there are alreday so many free games on the market available always for free, not only on a certain day and in undefined weekly intervals.

best wishes

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

Hi Senor, the giveaway team only send emails if you allow them. As for the new way of getting games. The team have been forced to try other avenues because the traditional freebies we once receive have dried up. Truly, would you give away thousands of copies of a game you'd worked hundreds of hours or more on to a community who in the main complained and gave virtually no feedback about the actuall game? I certainly wouldn't. Over the last several years I have regularily calculated certain statistics. for example at the most only 0.01% of the community who downlodaded a game giveaway bothered to comment when a game was given away and of that 0.01% less than 0.04% gave any significant or useful feedback whether it was negative or positive. I have asked the community for over 8 years if they would post useful feedback about the games we received and explained the positive benefits of doing so. It really doesn't take much effort to write several lines after you've played the game for a while. for those who think they can't, bullet points with the main aspects of the game are just as effective. The statistics indicate that my regular message every week that I posted at the end of my reviews asking the community to please post useful feedback was totally ignored. It seems obvious to me that if we received decent feedback every week, developers would want to use this site as it would not only give them an indication as to whether their games were popular, they would glean ideas from those suggested by the community to improve their games. This site could have (and it is still possible) become a nexus for developers. We would be used as a kind of beta test plaform, but the great thing would have been we would have received loads of free games and a wide variety. Instead the site has now been forced to resort to what many see an unpopular methods to get free games. I can only see the fault lies with the community in general. Too all of those that have posted positive feedback, and you know who you are so I won't post any names; the above message is not directed at you. I've become really jaded at the constant whining from many of those that post here. I wanted to curtail this by only allowing comments through that were releated to the game and even put it to a vote, but yet again received a massive number of complaints about freedom of speech etc. Why such negativity when what we are getting is free - i really don't understand why?

Nice game, but I see no reason to download it from GGOTD. I have downloaded many if not all of the games from myplaycity and never had any problems with browser hijacking or additional unwanted software installs.

The positive: surprisingly this is a real giveaway
The negative: GGOTD brought too many competitions in the past instead of free games for everyone.
Even if I´d been interested in some of the titltes  I did not enter contest -  too much afford, imho a waste of my time and I do not want any additional spamming mails in the future.

Not to forget the irritating name "Game Giveaway OF THE DAY". Go back to your roots or you will fail.

I mean that should overthink your strategie of bringing us free games. I see no reason for visiting your site in the future if there are alreday so many free games on the market available always for free, not only on a certain day and in undefined weekly intervals.

best wishes

<blockquote>.........................Moderator Comment.............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hi Senor, the giveaway team only send emails if you allow them. As for the new way of getting games. The team have been forced to try other avenues because the traditional freebies we once receive have dried up. Truly, would you give away thousands of copies of a game you'd worked hundreds of hours or more on to a community who in the main complained and gave virtually no feedback about the actuall game? I certainly wouldn't. Over the last several years I have regularily calculated certain statistics. for example at the most only 0.01% of the community who downlodaded a game giveaway bothered to comment when a game was given away and of that 0.01% less than 0.04% gave any significant or useful feedback whether it was negative or positive. I have asked the community for over 8 years if they would post useful feedback about the games we received and explained the positive benefits of doing so. It really doesn't take much effort to write several lines after you've played the game for a while. for those who think they can't, bullet points with the main aspects of the game are just as effective. The statistics indicate that my regular message every week that I posted at the end of my reviews asking the community to please post useful feedback was totally ignored. It seems obvious to me that if we received decent feedback every week, developers would want to use this site as it would not only give them an indication as to whether their games were popular, they would glean ideas from those suggested by the community to improve their games. This site could have (and it is still possible) become a nexus for developers. We would be used as a kind of beta test plaform, but the great thing would have been we would have received loads of free games and a wide variety. Instead the site has now been forced to resort to what many see an unpopular methods to get free games. I can only see the fault lies with the community in general. Too all of those that have posted positive feedback, and you know who you are so I won't post any names; the above message is not directed at you. I've become really jaded at the constant whining from many of those that post here. I wanted to curtail this by only allowing comments through that were releated to the game and even put it to a vote, but yet again received a massive number of complaints about freedom of speech etc. Why such negativity when what we are getting is free - i really don't understand why?</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by Senor – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#8

Downloaded, Installed and Activated with no problems on my Win10x64 machine using Edge as the browser. A very nice little breakout game. Its not quite up to the "Mega World Smash" (my favorite of this type of game) standards but very close. Its an Alawar game so you can be assured of beautiful graphics and decent gameplay. Have only played the first three levels so far but am impressed. Its a keeper for sure.
Thank you to GGOTD and My PlayCity for this excellent little time waster.

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

Thank you for your feedback Alan

Reply | Comment by Alan Jones – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#7

...[part 2 of my comment due to I-dont-know-the-reason-why-the-comment-was-sent - wow, things are REALLY weird, here, now!]

Not to mention SEVERAL other problems GAOTD has been having @1-2 years ago, this now is getting ridiculous as this is not the first time I miss giveaways (few days back I missed Forge of Gods for the very same reason!) WITHIN THE GIVEAWAY TIMEFRAME, SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE THEY RUN OUT!

When giveaways started to be scarce, someone suggested 'giveaway of the week' as a new honest for the project. What now? 'giveaways for the morning'? 'sit and wait for your giveaway, grab while you can'? I'm not recommending the site anymore, and now I'm frankly considering to start campaigns against it over the web.

-and sorry, Stephen, as we were pals and I don't want to change that because of this (please remove this part and, if you can, change my name to something else as the accidental sending posted my real name can't tell why as I NEVER posted as HM here)

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

Hi Helder, I'm not affiliated with this site at all. I've never been paid for my services, i'm just a moderator who has been here since the beginning. I've remaind and devoted thousands of hours of my time partly because I felt I needed to as a thank you for the site introducing me to other arcade games other than the ones I always played (mainly Breakouts and Shmups of which I owned 100's, with a few unusual platformers such as Gish and Wik and Tower Defense games. I never fancied playing any other games such as match threes, HOG's and Time Management games, which until recently had become the game giveaways mainstay of giveaways. The giveaway team enabled me to try those games properly (not as demo's which I never found gave enough time to properly check a game) and I then felt obliged to post initially small reviews, but later I became a moderator and started to post larger and more in depth reviews as well as administering the forums.

You can say what you like about the site, you are entitled to your opinion especially if you are having countless problems, and as far as I'm concerned it would in no way affect my friendship with you.. As I mentioned previously, of all the Steam keys given away here i've only received 2 of the unlimited keys of them despite applying for all of them, so something is wrong. With respect to the limited Steam keys, even when the odds were 50% or more and at one time virtually a 100% chance of winning a key I didn't win one key, whereas some community members (I won't mention names) won every time there was one. That seems very odd to me, though it still could be a coincidence?????

There may be an conflict with something running on your computer, for example try deleting the giveaway cookies as these can become corrupted and would then casue problems when applying for those limited keys. Have you tried using a different email? I changed my email for yesterdays key and finally received a key for a Steam game, be it a dlc for a free to play game.

...[part 2 of my comment due to I-dont-know-the-reason-why-the-comment-was-sent - wow, things are REALLY weird, here, now!]

Not to mention SEVERAL other problems GAOTD has been having @1-2 years ago, this now is getting ridiculous as this is not the first time I miss giveaways (few days back I missed Forge of Gods for the very same reason!) WITHIN THE GIVEAWAY TIMEFRAME, SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE THEY RUN OUT!

When giveaways started to be scarce, someone suggested 'giveaway of the week' as a new honest for the project. What now? 'giveaways for the morning'? 'sit and wait for your giveaway, grab while you can'? I'm not recommending the site anymore, and now I'm frankly considering to start campaigns against it over the web.

-and sorry, Stephen, as we were pals and I don't want to change that because of this (please remove this part and, if you can, change my name to something else as the accidental sending posted my real name can't tell why as I NEVER posted as HM here)

<blockquote>.........................Moderator Comment.............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hi Helder, I'm not affiliated with this site at all. I've never been paid for my services, i'm just a moderator who has been here since the beginning. I've remaind and devoted thousands of hours of my time partly because I felt I needed to as a thank you for the site introducing me to other arcade games other than the ones I always played (mainly Breakouts and Shmups of which I owned 100's, with a few unusual platformers such as Gish and Wik and Tower Defense games. I never fancied playing any other games such as match threes, HOG's and Time Management games, which until recently had become the game giveaways mainstay of giveaways. The giveaway team enabled me to try those games properly (not as demo's which I never found gave enough time to properly check a game) and I then felt obliged to post initially small reviews, but later I became a moderator and started to post larger and more in depth reviews as well as administering the forums.</blockquote>

<blockquote> You can say what you like about the site, you are entitled to your opinion especially if you are having countless problems, and as far as I'm concerned it would in no way affect my friendship with you.. As I mentioned previously, of all the Steam keys given away here i've only received 2 of the unlimited keys of them despite applying for all of them, so something is wrong. With respect to the limited Steam keys, even when the odds were 50% or more and at one time virtually a 100% chance of winning a key I didn't win one key, whereas some community members (I won't mention names) won every time there was one. That seems very odd to me, though it still could be a coincidence????? </blockquote>

<blockquote>There may be an conflict with something running on your computer, for example try deleting the giveaway cookies as these can become corrupted and would then casue problems when applying for those limited keys. Have you tried using a different email? I changed my email for yesterdays key and finally received a key for a Steam game, be it a dlc for a free to play game.</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by Helder Muniz – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#6

Yesterday giveaway, a pack for Forge of Gods, was out of keys 6 hrs before the deadline when I checked. Reading that they'd send keys to the ones who subscribe, I did my try just to get a warning on the situation. They said the promo would run until today - just checked, no keys, 'download trial' button.

Not to mention SEVERAL other problems GAOTD has been having @1-2 years ago, this now is getting ridiculous as this is not the first time I miss giveaways

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

Hi Helder, I too have had issues since they changed the format. I've applied for every Steam key that have been offered here and the only ones i've ever received were one I won via the limited keys back in June (there were only 100) and then yesterday I finally receive a key from the unlimited giveaways (though in reality they were based on previous download numbers, and were technically not unlimited). I used a different email the the one I usually use and was pleased to receive a key.

The giveaway team did say they would get more keys. I think the main problem is the extent to which this particular giveaway was received. Downloads and applications for Steam keys have steadily dropped over the past several months, probably becasue a lot of giveaway community members don't like DRM based clients such as Steam. The giveaway team have to pay a price for the keys, so don't want to buy too many at one time. Unfortunately yesterdays game was very popular compared to previous Steam key giveaways, so the 5K went very quickly. They have to work with the information thay have at hand. If you could see the download numbers in the admin panel for previous giveaways since the site changed its format back in February and since we lost Alawar and Playrix Games as regular givers of free games when w e used to get tens of thousands of downloads every weekend. The numbers of downloads has dramatically fallen since february, culminating in an all time low of a few hundred a few months ago, and on average we've only been seeing a few thousand downloads at the most since apart from the more popular games.

Please check your email throughout the day as it is still possible that the giveaway team will secure more keys as they did say the game would be live for a further 17 hours. Maybe the wording was wrong and they meant they would be getting more keys withing a 17 hour period post giveaway. This would mean anyone who did apply beofre the official end this morning should still get a key., unfirtunately all of this is just supposition a si'm not involved with that side of the giveaway prject. i'm just a lowly volunteer moderator who happens to enjoy posting more details of the game that is probablty not really necessary, but It keeps my mind active because since my accident way back in Sept 2005, I've been officially retired from work due to ill health reasons

The following is totally unrelated to the game, so please ignore/skip unless you are interested. The health reasons stem from the use of opiate meds, plus serious memory problems due to the head injury I sustained at the time of the accident; which was also totally ignored for several years despite frequent visits to my GP, and a lack of certain hormones that stem from the head injury as one of the glands in the brain was badly damaged (I now have to both inject and ingest these hormones daily for the rest of my life due to organic brain damage) and the chronic pain casued by a lack of care at the time of the accident. Basically I was sent home from the A&E department following the accident (despite the ambulance triage indicating a broken back) with only brusing and a sprain, where in fact I had serious head injuries and four broken vertbrae, two of which were serious. I lost almost 4 inches in heigh and now have serious memory problems. Three days after the event, the consultant radiologist as a matter of procedure checked the x-ray of my back and reported the fractures as 'Chance' fractures, (which are considered serious), but the report was unbelievably filed away and not reported to my local GP. I've been told by specialist that if I'd received the proper care and attention at the time of the accident the loss of heigh, and the disabiliteis that have resulted would have been 99% avoided. A few months after I realised I wasn't going to return to work, I purchased my medical notes from the hospital (before I took legal council) and discovered half of the report fromn the day of the accident had been falsly reported, for example they said I only had a pain score of 1 where in fac tI'd rported a score of 8 most of the times they asked me and never ever reported a one. Aslo they said I was able to walk despite never checking. When my wife picked me up, she literally had to pick me up and carry me to the car. Thankfully back then i was as light as a feather as I used to cycle 40 miles every day. Please excuse the waffle. I've been in a very contemplative mood today, going off subjet in most of my replies.

Yesterday giveaway, a pack for Forge of Gods, was out of keys 6 hrs before the deadline when I checked. Reading that they'd send keys to the ones who subscribe, I did my try just to get a warning on the situation. They said the promo would run until today - just checked, no keys, 'download trial' button.

Not to mention SEVERAL other problems GAOTD has been having @1-2 years ago, this now is getting ridiculous as this is not the first time I miss giveaways

<blockquote>.........................Moderator Comment.............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hi Helder, I too have had issues since they changed the format. I've applied for every Steam key that have been offered here and the only ones i've ever received were one I won via the limited keys back in June (there were only 100) and then yesterday I finally receive a key from the unlimited giveaways (though in reality they were based on previous download numbers, and were technically not unlimited). I used a different email the the one I usually use and was pleased to receive a key. </blockquote>

<blockquote>The giveaway team did say they would get more keys. I think the main problem is the extent to which this particular giveaway was received. Downloads and applications for Steam keys have steadily dropped over the past several months, probably becasue a lot of giveaway community members don't like DRM based clients such as Steam. The giveaway team have to pay a price for the keys, so don't want to buy too many at one time. Unfortunately yesterdays game was very popular compared to previous Steam key giveaways, so the 5K went very quickly. They have to work with the information thay have at hand. If you could see the download numbers in the admin panel for previous giveaways since the site changed its format back in February and since we lost Alawar and Playrix Games as regular givers of free games when w e used to get tens of thousands of downloads every weekend. The numbers of downloads has dramatically fallen since february, culminating in an all time low of a few hundred a few months ago, and on average we've only been seeing a few thousand downloads at the most since apart from the more popular games. </blockquote>
<blockquote>Please check your email throughout the day as it is still possible that the giveaway team will secure more keys as they did say the game would be live for a further 17 hours. Maybe the wording was wrong and they meant they would be getting more keys withing a 17 hour period post giveaway. This would mean anyone who did apply beofre the official end this morning should still get a key., unfirtunately all of this is just supposition a si'm not involved with that side of the giveaway prject. i'm just a lowly volunteer moderator who happens to enjoy posting more details of the game that is probablty not really necessary, but It keeps my mind active because since my accident way back in Sept 2005, I've been officially retired from work due to ill health reasons</blockquote>

<blockquote>The following is totally unrelated to the game, so please ignore/skip unless you are interested. The health reasons stem from the use of opiate meds, plus serious memory problems due to the head injury I sustained at the time of the accident; which was also totally ignored for several years despite frequent visits to my GP, and a lack of certain hormones that stem from the head injury as one of the glands in the brain was badly damaged (I now have to both inject and ingest these hormones daily for the rest of my life due to organic brain damage) and the chronic pain casued by a lack of care at the time of the accident. Basically I was sent home from the A&E department following the accident (despite the ambulance triage indicating a broken back) with only brusing and a sprain, where in fact I had serious head injuries and four broken vertbrae, two of which were serious. I lost almost 4 inches in heigh and now have serious memory problems. Three days after the event, the consultant radiologist as a matter of procedure checked the x-ray of my back and reported the fractures as 'Chance' fractures, (which are considered serious), but the report was unbelievably filed away and not reported to my local GP. I've been told by specialist that if I'd received the proper care and attention at the time of the accident the loss of heigh, and the disabiliteis that have resulted would have been 99% avoided. A few months after I realised I wasn't going to return to work, I purchased my medical notes from the hospital (before I took legal council) and discovered half of the report fromn the day of the accident had been falsly reported, for example they said I only had a pain score of 1 where in fac tI'd rported a score of 8 most of the times they asked me and never ever reported a one. Aslo they said I was able to walk despite never checking. When my wife picked me up, she literally had to pick me up and carry me to the car. Thankfully back then i was as light as a feather as I used to cycle 40 miles every day. Please excuse the waffle. I've been in a very contemplative mood today, going off subjet in most of my replies.</blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by Helder Muniz – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

#5

downloaded and installed fine on my Win7 laptop - tho I had trouble with the screen resolution. The game changed it without prompting - I don't usually check out the options until I need to - and then my mouse wouldn't work properly. So go into Options and pick your resolution BEFORE you start the game, and it will be all good.
Thanks very much to Playcity for an old fashioned paddle game with an underwater twist, license and platform free.
Thanks to GGA for continuing to do what they do, bringing us free games every weekend.

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

Thank you for your feedback Sheamurai. I found my mouse sensitivity (at least the one I started the game with was way over sensitive when I first booted up the game. Thankfully the options menu in this game allows you to easily adjust the mouse sensitivity without the need for an expensive gaming mouse. Too high and it becomes really easy to overshoot your paddle/bat while trying to bounce your ball, whereas if it's set too low you may miss the ball entrily due to the sluggish movement of the paddle/bat.

That said, we all have our own preferences, for example, I sometimes have two mice attached to my main computer. Usually when I'm playing games such as Arma 3 (one of the best shooting simulations available today). I'd been playing the game earlier this morning before the games went live and needed both mice attached because I like using both SMG's and Sniper rifles. Both require different mouse sensitivities to be effective. i.e. Even though the sensitivities on my mice can be changed on the fly, I find it easier and quicker to just swap over. When using a rifles, and especially sniper rifles the mouse needs to be set to one of the lower sensitivities. This allows easier, quicker and more accurate shooting, whereas a weapon such as a SMG or other short range weapon, which is not as accurate at hitting a target, even if you have it sighted correctly, the high sensitivity allows you to quckly re-direct your weapon to give a more accurate spread. All of the gaming mice I use have separate buttons for sensitivity (at the moment I have a Razer Lachesis and Razer Mamba connected), something I've come to expect with a mouse I purchase.

downloaded and installed fine on my Win7 laptop - tho I had trouble with the screen resolution.  The game changed it without prompting - I don't usually check out the options until I need to -  and then my mouse wouldn't work properly.    So go into Options and pick your resolution BEFORE you start the game, and it will be all good.  
Thanks very much to Playcity for an old fashioned paddle game with an underwater twist, license and platform free.
Thanks to GGA for continuing to do what they do, bringing us free games every weekend.

<blockquote>.........................Moderator Comment.............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Thank you for your feedback Sheamurai. I found my mouse sensitivity (at least the one I started the game with was way over sensitive when I first booted up the game. Thankfully the options menu in this game allows you to easily adjust the mouse sensitivity without the need for an expensive gaming mouse. Too high and it becomes really easy to overshoot your paddle/bat while trying to bounce your ball, whereas if it's set too low you may miss the ball entrily due to the sluggish movement of the paddle/bat.</blockquote>

<blockquote>That said, we all have our own preferences, for example, I sometimes have two mice attached to my main computer. Usually when I'm playing games such as Arma 3 (one of the best shooting simulations available today). I'd been playing the game earlier this morning before the games went live and needed both mice attached because I like using both SMG's and Sniper rifles. Both require different mouse sensitivities to be effective. i.e. Even though the sensitivities on my mice can be changed on the fly, I find it easier and quicker to just swap over. When using a rifles, and especially sniper rifles the mouse needs to be set to one of the lower sensitivities. This allows easier, quicker and more accurate shooting, whereas a weapon such as a SMG or other short range weapon, which is not as accurate at hitting a target, even if you have it sighted correctly, the high sensitivity allows you to quckly re-direct your weapon to give a more accurate spread. All of the gaming mice I use have separate buttons for sensitivity (at the moment I have a Razer Lachesis and Razer Mamba connected), something I've come to expect with a mouse I purchase. </blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by sheamurai – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

#4

Upon start, this game tries to call home, then tries to change the computer's TCP/IP settings. When denied both attempts by the firewall, it quietly finishes. Uninstalled.

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

Hi John

As with all games from sites such as MyPlayCity (and others such as Gametop, tooMky Games, FreeGamePick and others), they rely on your browser being redirected back to their main page becasue this earns them cash which is used to perpetuate the site and also pay the developers of the games that are 'given' away. The games MPC allow via the game giveaway site do have most of the stuff that usually comes with such games (i.e. possible home page hijacks, toolbars and search engine changes) removed. These are usually accessed via checkboxes, but all those have been removed. what hasn't is the initial browser redirect when you first install the game. This is to ensure the site and developer start to earn cash via your visit to the site. Every time you subsequently play the game the advert at the beginning tells the site that you have booted up the game and when you close the game down, your browser is opened at MyPlayCities home page (or if you got the game from one of the others I mentioned above to their home page). The only way these 'free' game sites can operate is to add these extra's. however they are totally innocuous. They do not pose a threat to your computer. If they started such practices they would soon go out of buisness.

Personally I prefer to pay for my games as I see it supporting the developers. the more cash they earn, the better the games we can expect; that said I realize not everone can afford to buy games, especially at the volume I purchase them at. (for example, over the last three weeks I've purchased over 300 arcade and AAA games). Basically it's my hobby, be it an expensive one. I could have purchased at least a couple of custom built classic Harley Davidsons and maybe even a claswsic Crocker and had them imported to the UK with the money I've spent on games over the last decade since my accident. I play a lot of games of virtually all genres regularily because they help with my pain management, especially new games, so even though I cringe when I realize how much I've spent on games over the last decade (well over £100 000/over $130 000 at todays exchange rates, which are the lowest in a long time), it's been for a good cause. Besides I've throughly enjoyed the journey of discovery. :)

The only time I download MPC games is if I don't own the game already and I have to write a review for this site. Even then I tend to wait until the game has gone live.

Upon start, this game tries to call home, then tries to change the computer's TCP/IP settings. When denied both attempts by the firewall, it quietly finishes. Uninstalled.

<blockquote>.........................Moderator Comment.............................</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hi John</blockquote>
<blockquote>As with all games from sites such as MyPlayCity (and others such as Gametop, tooMky Games, FreeGamePick and others), they rely on your browser being redirected back to their main page becasue this earns them cash which is used to perpetuate the site and also pay the developers of the games that are 'given' away. The games MPC allow via the game giveaway site do have most of the stuff that usually comes with such games (i.e. possible home page hijacks, toolbars and search engine changes) removed. These are usually accessed via checkboxes, but all those have been removed. what hasn't is the initial browser redirect when you first install the game. This is to ensure the site and developer start to earn cash via your visit to the site. Every time you subsequently play the game the advert at the beginning tells the site that you have booted up the game and when you close the game down, your browser is opened at MyPlayCities home page (or if you got the game from one of the others I mentioned above to their home page). The only way these 'free' game sites can operate is to add these extra's. however they are totally innocuous. They do not pose a threat to your computer. If they started such practices they would soon go out of buisness. </blockquote>
<blockquote>Personally I prefer to pay for my games as I see it supporting the developers. the more cash they earn, the better the games we can expect; that said I realize not everone can afford to buy games, especially at the volume I purchase them at. (for example, over the last three weeks I've purchased over 300 arcade and AAA games). Basically it's my hobby, be it an expensive one. I could have purchased at least a couple of custom built classic Harley Davidsons and maybe even a claswsic Crocker and had them imported to the UK with the money I've spent on games over the last decade since my accident. I play a lot of games of virtually all genres regularily because they help with my pain management, especially new games, so even though I cringe when I realize how much I've spent on games over the last decade (well over £100 000/over $130 000 at todays exchange rates, which are the lowest in a long time), it's been for a good cause. Besides I've throughly enjoyed the journey of discovery. :)</blockquote>
<blockquote>The only time I download MPC games is if I don't own the game already and I have to write a review for this site. Even then I tend to wait until the game has gone live. </blockquote>

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Reply | Comment by JohnB – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

JohnB, WhiteRabbit, why is the game changing TCP/IP settings? I have no problems with seeing a web page open, but if a program starts changing my network settings it could degrade performance on everything I do after that. Not certain my firewall would block this change, so I am unwilling to try out this game. Is this a unique issue with this game, or many/all MyPlayCity games? JohnB, what firewall do you use? Has anyone else confirmed this?

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

Hi Mr Dave, As far as I know MPC games nor any of the other well known free game sites chage TCP settings. I've installed the MPC games thatnyave been given away here and have never had a problem with them, tohugh i do delete them after the giveaway as I prefer to support the developers by buying the game from them. Yes I know, we are indirectly supporting them by playing the MPC versions. I'm just set in my ways, preferring to buy the game with an activation code so that i can install it anywhere any time at my convinience without having to go online.

Reply | Comment by mrdave – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#3

Always fun these kind of games....thanks

Reply | Comment by swa – 8 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

#2

Win10 Home 64bit. Loaded and played great. There was an issue with the screen but go into Options and you can change the screen resolution there. When you exit the game the computer will say that compatiability was changed and do you want to keep this. Yes.

As for the game, WOW. Lots of curves and bits and bobs and etc etc. I liked it. Will keep this one.

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

Thank you for your feedback Suzanne. This is one of the better breakout games available, tohugh there are much better ones such as the Roicochet franchise, especially the last in the series, which gives you access to literally thousands of free community made level sets. also Acky's XP Breakout (one of my all time favorites) as well as breakquest, whose 100 levels are totally original. Every level has a totally different brick set. highly recommended to those who love breakouts. I also recomment Hyperballoid 1 a nd 2. th e original is ideal for beginners and moderate players. It has 1000 levels, most of which used to be sold as extra level sets, but they were all added to the game several years ago. i paid over £100 for the total game when it was first released. you can pick it up free these days. there are some amazing levels, with beautiful level designs and a plethora of power ups. I could recommend hundreds of them. check out the thread i'ver linked to at the end of my review called Arkanoids and Breakouts: A list of decent freeware (and not so free)