This is a lot of fun. I like the levels from the training to the easy, medium and difficult. The graphics are great!

my block are invisible? it looked cool at first, but it would be much cooler without invisible blocks. that kind of defeats the purpose IMO

This is bad, folks...and I LOVE free stuff, but with my laptop being forced into windowed mode, the invisible bricks and a paddle that seems to have a mind of his own, the game is visually unappealing and the gameplay sucks....

i have had no trouble with downloading and installing arca mania 2, i have an xp sp2, while not as good as some i have played, this is definitely a nice game, especially for free. i do agree with some that it is a bit on the slow side, however, i have not had any trouble with invisible bricks. thank you ggaotd for all your work.

It leaves the screen in a wrong shape

I'm looking forward to the 'big hits'. I missed one because I was on dialup. A great one got corrupted so it didn't show the score, but still played. (I forgot the name, but I played it a lot and it was about an 8.6 out of 10. It was a dungeon shooter game.) I hope the big hits will be Vista compatible.

The game looked simple but thought it might be fun. Unfortunately I had the same problem a lot of others complained about. The invisible bricks. Kind of makes it not much fun to play. It would have been nice to have the developer pop in and explain this for us. It is still nice to have free games each day to choose from. Thanks GOTD.

I uninstalled this game. I am not a real big fan of Arkanoid type of games, but thought I would give this one a try. My bricks were invisible! It just was not worth the hassle of figuring out what was wrong. I didnt find any way to change the settings so I could see the bricks. How about a good adventure game next time?

Amusingly confusing. The one problem is that after you run out of balls it tells you that "you loose." I guess that's as opposed to "you tight?"

Loved the game...the sound effects are excellent and the graphics are FANTASTIC!!!!! The only thing that I didn't like about the game is that the ball runs wwwwwwaaaaayyyyyy ttttoooo SLOW in all levels otherwise it is a FANTASTIC game!!! If I hadn't of gotten it for free, I would definitely consider buying it! That really means a lot as I rarely ever buy games.

#27 how about the name "Minigolf Championship"? I still play it. I am not very good at the game but I love knocking the ball into the water. It would be more fun if there ducks in the water - sort of "rpg". Yea, give me ducks!

ArcaMania 2 absolutely kix tail! Very cool game! Thanx GOTD.

The graphix/audio trax are perfect!!! I'm at the 4th level of 33 [on the easy setting now]. It is very addicting as well. A very SWEET game!
I give it a "GOTD 5 Star" [5 being the Best] rating.

Much better than a similar game called Richocet [sp].

I am so disappointed. I have downloaded this game and I am trying to instal it now and it is telling me that the giveaway period is over. But according the the site here I still have "Active Giveaway time left: 2 hours 11 minutes " left to activate the game. I really wanted this game. So at this moment I am so very disappointed.

love the game keep up the good work

HELP! Is this game supposed to be this slow? I played the Dungeon level (most difficult) and the ball took 5 seconds to move from the paddle at the bottom of the screen to the top wall.

CounterStrike Source plays fast and well on my computer so is there a setting I am missing?

If it is really like this, they should call this Endurance Arkanoid.

i love busting bricks. hope i don't get any invisible blocks..
#5 is stupid

Not downloading this one. I need Chroma-ways and don't want to buy it. Please re-gift it. Thanx! Pam

I have never posted here before, but this one NEEDS TO BE READ!

The program starts with 1/2 invisible bricks and 1/2 visible. There are solid bricks that are actually invisible as well. How pathetic is that?

I actually labored through the first screen to see if the program had a bug in it. I had to sit and watch as my ball bounced off invisible bricks for a full 3 minutes before it dropped to my paddle. No exaggerations....3 minutes of watching a ball bounce. It hit everything imagineable, yet I couldn't see what it was hitting.

I miraculously made it to the next level. The next level was all invisible. I was hitting bricks I couldn't see.

THIS PROGRAM SUCKS!! IF ITS FREE...WHO CARES...IT SUCKS...VERY AMATUERISH!!!

I love this site. I have downloaded lots of programs. I have paid for current versions and supported by purchasing their other offerings.

I couldn't even fathom that this company thought this was acceptable. This was totally worthless. DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS !

I like this kind of game, but it always makes me shudder when I get to the last ball and it tells me "you loose". How rude :-) And it takes a few tries to be able to actually leave the game. You click on Quit and it brings you back into the game! You click on Quit again and it brings you back again. Then on the 3rd try they asked me something worded strangely - like ending this person. But finally I did get out.

Played it for 15 seconds. Very junky game. Del.

This reminds of the brick game on the iPod

To 54 No Mainpupil... I don't get your comment. Does that mean it's worthless? Do you expect everyone to give an in-depth review on it as Whiterabbit does? Yes, his reviews are detailed, succinct, and appreciated. But why are everyone else's views "worthless" to you. I agree that if someone just posts "yuck" or the like... whatever. I guess they said they didn't like it. I called it "strange" for a 'noid, and thanked someone for the expansion pack link. Sorry you take this so seriously and feel the need to judge other's remarks as "worthless." I usually don't post unless I have something "worthwhile" to say, but I do always like to thank GGAOTD for the offer. That, for one thing, isn't worthless, as it offsets a lot of the grief they get from people complaining about a free game.

Hi I was no 18. I coudnt stop the game even with cont alt delete so I have been trying since
I went to add remove and uninstalled the game
to get back my sound. lol its very faint and its all the way up.
First I tried to write a file to a cd and my cd player wont recognize any of my cds. So I cant put the file on.
If someone would be so kind to tell me how to get my sound and the
cd to work I love this site but
I think the game stole my sound and my cd player lol
helpppppppp ema

@#41 Ickle One
The right mouse click or pressing "enter" on k-board releases the ball into play.

I like Arkanoid/Breakout clones, but gave this on a thumbs down. I may go back to it again later, but for now, getting through the second level was playing long enough for me. But the game installed flawlessly, I've got no trouble with the game play itself (gotta remember to avoid the falling "reverse paddle" powerup, that got confusing.) I DID like the one where it flipped the whole board upside down so that you were playing from the top instead. But that whole droning background noise (not to mention the floating heads going "ow" each time I hit one of THEM) drove me nuts before I even finished the first level. This one is definitely a little different, but just not too keen on it, at least at first play. Thanks for something new to try though.

I agree with #5 that seeing the Big Hit Tomorrow at the top of the webpage every day is confusing. Unless a new user actually clicked on the article and noticed the date, they would never know that it is an old comment. I would advise GAOTD to remove the outdated blog, or post blog entries more often so the older ones move down the list faster, or at least use specific dates in their blog posts instead of words like "tomorrow."

I have XP HE SP2, installed good but the bricks are invisible. Thanks anyway.

After all the comments about various problems and invisible bricks (which isn't mentioned on their website, so I don't think that's supposed to happen as some have suggested), I saw #21's comment about the free Retro ArcaMania download; got it, installed just fine and plays very well on my trusty old Win98/PIII 1GHz laptop. Good enough for me!

Thanks for the link Mad Ollie, and thanks, 300AD and GGAOTD for all you do!!!!

(There are a couple other free retro games at 300AD, for oldtimegeeks like me)

re: WHITERABBIT aka Stephen
Would someone post [either on here or on the forums] if they know how his health is these days? Or how to contact him?

Thanks,
Lisa Kay

Below is an excerpt from a review by the insightful and inimitable "WhiteRabbit aka Stephen" the last time this was offered on GGOTD [Feb 2007]. btw - almost a 75% approval rating that time.

"....I’ve already purchased this game (as well as the first ArcaMania) and although there are aspects that don’t come up to scratch by todays standards, this is amongst the top 20 arcanoid clones within my collection of over 140 bought arcanoids. It’s several years old, so with that in mind don’t expect the most beautiful graphics, that said, the game play is actually rather original in places. You have three levels of play each level being represented by a different theme. Space Odessy is the easy Scenario, Treasure Island the medium and dungeon the hard scenario. You also get a training session, which I suggest you should try first, especially if you’re not an arkanoid freak like me because the game controls are a little different from the usual arcanoid. For example your ball is presented centrally above the bat, so make sure you have your bat under the ball when you activate it (by right clicking on the mouse)
The game offers all the usual treats you’d expect from an arkanoid as well as some power ups I’ve either not seen in any other arcanoid or only very rarely. For example one power up adds a full row of colorful bricks somewhere in the playing arena, or a broken barrier below the bat to add a little extra defence against going out of bounds, another reverses the bat and yet another reverses the arena, both of these “negative” power ups really do make it difficult for all but very skilled players to succeed in keeping the ball in play. The lattrer two can be seen in games such as Arkon Toys and Wave Ball, but rarely elsewhere. Plus there are lots more power ups and bonus items to collect.

Personally I like the quirky music and odd sound effects. You get obstacles floating around the screen that adds to the playability of the game, and some of the eye candy is quite spectacular….crimson tracers shoot across the screen, following the ball, or white hot trails, depending upon which power up you’ve picked up. There’s a regenerating utility that allows you to change the direction of your ball and enought levels to keep the most devoted of arkanoid fans happy for ages. You can also download a totally free scenario that is called ArkaMania2 Retro from either:

http://www.300ad.com/arcamania2_Retro.php

or

http://demonews.com/download-676.html

You’ll find other freeware programs from the latter address. The Retro version is basically the same package as ArcaMania 2 with the training session and the retro pack added.

This is an appealing game in my opinion, and will give any arcade game lover a run for their money, or in this case their time, lol.

....The only thing that detracts from this game is the lack of an options menu, but to be honest it’s not really needed."

Comment by WhiteRabbit aka Stephen — February 8th, 2007 at 5:36 am

Miss you greatly, WhiteRabbit.

Lisa Kay

The groaning heads were cute the first couple times I hit one. After that, the groaning became first irritating, then annoying, and finally resulted in my uninstalling the game.

I forgot to mention above what I'm running.
Windows XP Pro. MCE SP2
Pentium D-830 Duel Core 3.0 GHz
1GB Ram
On board Graphics 82945G Express Chipset with the 950 accelerator chip
All drivers and Direct X up to newest versions

I love these type of games, but this one is really bad. Invisible blocks, poor graphics, bad play...just a poor game.

Looking on the comment's page for this game Giveaway I'm not the only one with the same problem. Seems when running the game the bricks are invisible. It doesn't seem to be a OS problem. From the comments it's on both Vista and XP. I started a post in the forums so if others are having the same problem please post and include:
Operating System & Version.
What Video card
what processor
anything else that might help in finding out the problem.

I'll post back if I find out a solution.

Same problem here...invisible bricks on all the levels I tried. Using XP Pro and don't usually have problems. As always though, thanks to GGOTD for bringing us free games. Keep up the great work!

Serious bug!! This game does not stop when you say quit. I had to kill it with the Task manager. XP Pro SP3, P4HT 3.0, GeForce 7600GS AGP, 2gb DDR 400. I will be uninstalling.

Thanks anyway GGAOTD.

Thanks for today's game offer, but I am passing on this one. I already have a few of these games on my system and do not play them very often. Thank you and I'll check back tomorrow.

Where's a way to turn down the sound??

I'm sorry to say, but the comments so far (##1-24 with the exception of #21) are for anyone new to this game (almost) totally worthless!

Though, isn't there a guy from the suburbs of Manchester/UK being on vacation now who IMHO has been writing the longest, smartest, most profound, most sensible and overall most objective game reviews ever been written in the computer game history of mankind? ...lol...

I'm sure you know whom I mean.

That said, just have a look at http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/arcamania-2/#comments/ , read HIS comment (#8) and forget about all the blablabla by people who cannot withstand to see their name posted on the internet. Enjoy #8 which truly IS possible even for non-native English speakers!
BTW, today's game is a repeat from 02/08/2007.

Yuck. Installed and UNinstalled - terrible sound effects, music, and the bricks/blocks at the top of the screen were flashing enough to send a person into a seizure. Please have more RPG/match three games like Puzzle Hero!!

Will not run on Vista.

Invisible blocks and gave me a headache.

A very strange 'Noid! Thanks, GGAOTD... and thanks Mad Ollie for the link to the Retro pack. Hmmmm.

Previously given away February 8, 2007. 73% favorable at that time. See comments here: http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/arcamania-2/.

That is a reasonable time for a repeat and not a bad arkanoid clone.

One too many of such game. Had two from previous offerings but rarely used them anyway. I'll pass. But then again, for those who has none of the like, this might be a good one. After all it is free today. Appreciate your offerings GAOTD, and 300AD, you are a great game company

Hi All, Download, Install and activation went fine. Installed on XP-Pro SP-3 with no problems. Nice Brick-bustin game with decent graphics and sound. Give it a try...thanks GGOTD.

I HATE invisible bricks! Love this kind of game: wanted one, so very disappointed at the invisible bricks. Deleted off hard drive. Love this site though, and loved Puzzle Hero. Hope I get another chance at a game with real bricks.

Installed fine on my XP system. I didn't have any invisible bricks or any other problems. :)

This is not my kind of game, I just can't sit and watch a ball bounce around the screen. I get bored with it easily. If you are into breakout type games you may like this one but it is not for me. :(

Since I don't like this genre of games, I did not vote. I don't feel I am a good judge of a game I did not like before I started.

Thanks to GGAOTD for all you do and to 300AD for supplying us with games. Now, over to the software side to check out the offering of the day. :lol:

loaded fine, unloaded it quickly... not fond of the invisible blocks, thanks for the free games tho.. :)

Not good at all. Bad music comes in over a bad game. In the first level I had to wait a minute before my ball came back down to my paddle to even be able to play the game. Not good.