Lol i wont give Vista a break #40. As usual the almighty BG decided he had to have this thing out way before it worked right. Have you ever read the terms of use? That alone is enuff to turn anyone off. I have never had any problems with XP. If you are getting blue screens and stuff then you must not know how to operate your computer very well. I have had 3 computers running XP and 1 that rank ME which how it runs reminds me of Vista...GARBAGE. All of the computer businesses around here that build their own comps install XP, they do not recommend Vista right now. I would give it about 2 more years if they keep working on it. I know someone who beta tested it and they said it wasnt ready either but no one listened, no surprise. As pretty as Vista may look, i will take functionality over that. Like the other guy said, when your printers drivers etc finally work then maybe it will be worth someones time. Until then, i love my XP

downloafed, unzipped and installed fine, ran great on Xp, the game is a lot of fun. when I exited it resized my icons and froze up my deskto[ and I had to reboot manually. I removed the Game from the games folder and fed it to file shredder to be sure I was rid of it. Too bad, it was a very cool game until it nearly killed my computer.

For those with Vista boxes which were not designed to "just cope" with vista, but have ample processing space and memory left:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

Use that, it makes a virtual PC on your desktop on which you can install XP, on which you can play the XP games.

#58, PapaS:

I half agree with you. But I think that a small effort from the team could be a small note saying that the gemae is or is not compatible with Vista, so we don't waste our time downloading a game for nothing (not all people read the comments and most of the time they read after downloading the game).

For all of those who have Vista, I am sorry that most software is not compatible with it, but please do not penalize the rest of us by saying things like.."Please do not offer software that is not compatible with Vista"... Not all of us plan on switching to Vista, and my personal opinion I am tired of Microsoft coming out with another OS every other year. I do not plan on spending another 300 or 400 bucks on it. But I will spend money on games that are compatible with my system. So, to the giveaway team and the developers who do the game scripting...thank you.
To those of you on Vista, by the time all the software is made compatible, Microsoft will have another OS out. I wonder how long the gaming community is going to put up with this.

Hey.

Does anyone know if this works on VISTA?????????

LOL

You guys crack me up.

You see 30 posts that state the game DOES NOT work on Vista, yet you download it anyway and act surprised that----GUESS WHAT?-----IT DOESN'T WORK ON VISTA!!!!!!

Do you think there's any possible way you can work through this calamity and find a way to get on with your lives???

Is counseling available in your area?

Great Game!!!!!!!!!

Starting on the 4th level, it reminds me of pinball, what with the bumpers and all. Very challenging, very unusual, and a great change of pace.

My only wish is that I had Vista:-)

Did not want to install on Windows Vista home premium.:(

:oops: pressed the wrog button:

Here's the working link for quadronoid:

http://www.divogames.com/games/arcade/quadronoid/

The link I posted to the quadronoid game is dead. Sorry, I should have rechecked it as it's some time since I used it. The gam developer was divo games. You can download it from thei site which is

A lukewarm thumbs up to the game itself, but a pronounced thumbs down for the 114 MB usage. There is no apparent justification for the game's size. It looks and sounds like a 10 MB game. For those who have ample space on their hard drives this is not an issue, but I have an older computer with only about 1.5 Gig remaining.
Putting aside the size, it's a decent if unspectacular breakout game that can't hold a candle to the Ricochet series. I don't care for the frequent change in orientation from vertical to horizontal, and from having to cover one side of the board to having to cover two.

I use the mouse. I would say this is an excellent game and well worth downloading.

Installed fine, but not my cup of tea. Will probably uninstall it. Reminded me of the old breakout on Atari. And I wasn't a big fan of that either.

I've checked out the old reviews and read all of the reviews here (thru #40) and I haven't found one comment on whether or not you use the mouse or the keyboard. I don't see well and am not able (or maybe just don't want to) use the keyboard) so I would like to know how this game is controlled. Can anyone tell me before I dl it? Thank you so much.

Oops! Spoke too soon. The Ball7 keeps crashing repeatedly when I play it on my Vista laptop. My wife is playing it on my XP desktop just fine. So, I was wrong, it plays on Vista for a while, then locks up. Deleted off Vista machine! The game itself, we like. My wife likes the game too, and says the ball speed is not too fast.

All people with Vista wanting wanting quality freeware games:
check out www.caiman.us
Most game reviews state if the game sworks in XP and Vista.

Everybody who complains about "not Vista compatible"; I've collected some similar examples below; maybe you realise the sillyness of your complaints...

Why should the whole world only make software that works your computer with Windows Vista, and the rest of the world should work for free to make all previously published software Vista compatible?

Imagine you bought a Playstation 2, then you bought a Playstation 3 and then complain not all your old games work on that new one....
I don't see all game developers running to make their PS2 games compatible with PS3 for free.
Still, PS3's are sold in reasonable numbers.

And who of you also complains that the exhaust pipe of, say, your old Ford Taunus car doesn't fit on their new Ford Focus???
Still, Ford manages to sell a few cars...

You know, I was thinking about a free-bread-giveaway.... but I can already guess the comments on that:
"Yeah well, I stopped eating plain bread last year, now I am used to eating croissants. You don't give me free croissants so your service stinks...."
Yeah right... why don´t you just BUY croissants if you think you deserve more than free bread.

So live with it: if you get a new computer system, not all old software will work... That's the way of the world, or do you see any dinosaurs that are made "human-compatible"?

Amazingly, I was able to run this on BOTH my XP and Vista computers! The only lil surprise was that it loads a little slower on Vista. Oh, on my XP machine I had to enable DEP, but then it ran fine. And, one more thing, no, thats all. It is working without issues on Vista, and XP. Didnt have to change compatability mode either. My only complaint about the game is, I wish the ball moved a little bit faster. It isnt really all that challenging until several levels have passed.

I hear some on here dont like Vista. I have Vista on my laptop and a desktop. They work great! My old printer wont work on it (no driver), but I just went out and bought a new printer. I will admit that I do like XP just a wee tad better, but Vista is much improved since I have the latest updates installed. I do NOT like the fact that the names of all the familiar Control Panel names have changed.

Downloaded perfect, for those of you do not like Arkanoid type games, this one is one of the best the best they have, it's not like the nomnal brick buster, there are good physics in this game, the sound is great and so are the graphics! I have played 7 levels, they become hard as you progress!
GIVE IT TRY! (^:
Thanks again so much, for some one who is in a wheelchair ,most days, I really want to thank GGATOD AND GAOTD for doing such a great service! This site is one in a million!!!!!!
THANK YOU!
Suzanne

Crashes with an unspecified error at the loading splash screen on my XP system. This is the first game that hasn't worked for me. Looks like a game I might have liked. Oh well.

How to uninstall: go to C:/Games/ and delete the directory.

kind of cool, different, having the bats be on the sides as well as top and bottom on some of the levels - challenging to say the least!!
looks like a fun one but hopefully not too addicting...
thanks ggotd!!

PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO UNINSTALL THIS
Thank you

omg yet another arkanoid clone... oh well, maybe i will like it

Very slow load time on Vista. But game is playable.

As others have noted, it does not work for Vista for me either. However, #25 (Vella) Lay off Vista, please? I bought my machine with it pre-installed. More than 95% of my old applications still work although a few have needed a few tricks and compatibility settings.

I have a friend who just got a new machine with Vista and she is tickled with some of the new features. She especially likes the fact that she no longer gets blue-screens several times a day as she did with XP!

It's fairly new and many of the old games don't mention it. That does not always mean they won't work. Most will.

#18 (Lisa) It is not reasonable to expect everything to be tested for Vista, especially games. I see a lot of older games out there that still only list Win 95 and 98. They often work under Vista with no problems. I even even see DOS games still available. Those may work under 32 bit Vista but not under 64 bit.

Remember that just because it does not SAY Vista does not mean it won't work. Most of the time, it's just that the game is older and has not been tested or certified for Vista. Rarely is it left off because it is KNOWN to fail under Vista.

This game refuses to start properly. The graphics are all screwed up.
This is the second game from GAOFTD in 2 weeks that didnt work on my pc.I am on 96kbps broadband and cant afford to download stuff that doesn't work on my pc. Suddenly this free stuff doesn't seem so good any more...

"Please do not share software that is not compatable with Vista. It is really outdated now to share stuff that won’t work. Vista compatable software is the only feasable thing now a days. Please consider that when sharing here as well.
Thank You"

The absurdity and downright blatant incorrectness of this statement is utterly hilarious. Lisa Reinbolt, it appears as if you've only just recently started to use computers, as anyone who had actual experience with a version of Windows other than Vista would not have made such a blatantly false statement. MORE people actually use Windows XP than Vista. Vista is not stable or functional enough to eclipse XP yet, and that's why so many programs will not run on it. Games are in fact the last thing you should be worried about being compatible with Vista. What about your printer drivers, DVD burning software, file sharing programs, and even word processors? These most basic sofwares need to function properly first and formost and for the most part they do not (on Vista) because like all other operating systems, the thing was released long before it was finished. Mac OS 10 was a bloody nightmare when it first came out, and I am speaking from experience. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING worked on OS 10 that I was used to being able to run on OS 9 (back when I was a Mac user) until a few years later when they finally bothered to update the necessary drivers.

Please people, the only thing that isn't "feasable" is you guys making silly comments demonstrating just how little you know about what you are talking about. As said before, this site isn't here to cater to YOUR operating system, or even YOU to begin with.

I am still chortling at the absurdity of #18's comment.. :)

I found this game really different and challenging because the path of the playing field changes from top to bottom and side to side.. and I really like arcade type games so this one is great for me. Try it out, I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I'm running on WindowsXP so I didn't have a problem with it loading and playing.. only thing is I had to create a desktop icon for it but that's no biggy. Thank you for the great free game.

And for people that complain about the type of games given away free here, I think the operative word is FREE.. if you don't like todays game wait a few days and you may find one you like .. with a different game given away each day you're not going to like them all, that's an unreasonable expectation. Personally I really enjoy the arcade and match 3 type of games so they are the ones I wait for and if I find I don't like it then I just delete it from my computer, simple as that.

Once again thank you for the great game.

I got it to run on Vista Ultimate 64 bit, much to my surprise. If you are EXTREMELY patient it will run eventually. First time I tried running it I got frustrated with the loading screen staying up for several minutes and started pressing keys and finally the program crashed closing itself. Then I tried it again (happened to be before I went to bed) this time I just left the loading screen alone and (it took somewhere between 15 minutes - about 6 hours) after seeing it hadn't loaded in around 15 minutes I went to bed, much to my surprise when I woke up it was working. Now loading between levels is slow too takes around 3 minutes, but once loaded it plays normal. So if you are real patient it might just work for you too. FYI I have a quad core cpu I dunno if that helps or hurts or matters at all very odd how it takes forever to load things. I had read in the past about some file i/o speed issues with Vista with a few rare programs I guess this is one to add to that list.

I was up half the night writing this and posted it at the change over so was surprised not to see it as I also checked to see that it had gone by posting it a second time at which point I got the message that I'd already posted it. Strange. That's the first time this has happened to me?

Anyway, here it is again:

Ball 7 review

Introduction and Installation:

This received a positive 90% of 201 votes when it was given away in July 07 as well as a fairly good reception in the comments section although the installer didn’t install any shortcuts which some felt was a little annoying; thankfully it’s easy enough to create your own short cuts. See the link below for details on how to accomplish this:

Creating a shortcut:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2594?replies=3

Previous Comments:

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/ball-7/#comments

Once installed the game takes up approximately 100Mb of which over 80Mbs are textures and animations.



The Game

A small window always opens on starting the game that allows you to change your screen resolution, (though there are actually only four settings from 640x480 to 1280x1024). Once this is done you are taken to the main menu, where you have the choice of starting a new game or if you’ve already played, resuming where you left off. For new players, setting up your profile can be a bit of a bind as the game has chosen to use that antiquated method of inputting your name one letter at a time from a grid of letters. Assuming you are a returning player; you can select any previous level that you’ve played if you wish. Also when you’ve lost all your lives, you are given the opportunity of restarting the level again, but with only one life. This is not always a bad thing as the first time it happened to me I seemed to be really lucky and picked up three lives within a short space of time. There are two game modes to play, arcade and realistic, the difference between then is in the way the ball reacts in game. That is in the arcade mode the ball does not obey Newton’s Laws of Motion, whereas with the realistic mode the ball will always bounce in the opposite direction from which it came. (Obeying the equal and opposite force Law) The arcade mode allows much more control over the balls movement. Regardless of which mode you choose though, the ball physics are exceptionally good in this game, and I’d go as far as to say they are the best I’ve seen here on the game giveaway project in any arkanoid given away. Also depending upon what the ball hits, very fast ball speeds can be attained which makes it very difficult to keep in play, especially if you have more than one bat in play. In some levels there are moving obstacles that are indestructible, and add to the overall difficulty of the game as they add even more uncertainty to the game play. You’ll find up to four bats in play in the later levels, much like in the arkanoid game called Quadronoid that I mention below in the notes

The information page, that’s found in the main menu, details all the power ups which you can collect, the most useful ones being the gun and the life bonuses (IMO). There are plenty of life bonuses, which is a good thing as you’re going to need them. You can see the power ups by following the links to the images below. The game is paused using the traditional P key and there’s even a boss key.

The options menu allows you to change the volume of the music and sound effect, but there is no other parameter to adjust, for example there’s no windowed mode unfortunately.


Images

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Ball%207/



Slideshow Images

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Ball%207/?albumview=slideshow




Conclusion

Even if you’ve got several arkanoids this is a must have. Despite its uninspiring power ups, (generally) there are some unusual surprises in this game. The slick looking level design that change from level to level; one minute your shooting balls upwards from the traditional 2D position, then you’re shooting them from a sideways viewpoint, with a bat at each end., Sometimes these are reversed, so that you have two bats, one at the top and bottom, or just one bat from the side, (like in Z-ball) and as mentioned above in later levels you’re going to come across even more bats. :lol: About the only unusual power up is the light switch which when turned off, the only light source you’ll see is coming from the ball. However the best bit is the excellent ball physics. Which are unsurpassed when comparing this game with most other arkanoids I know. Though I do think the ball physics for the freeware game Poing is just as good, and maybe even another freeware arkanoid called Beat Ball which you can download from the freeware section of the game giveaway project. (You can see a review of Poing in the game discussion forums – see link below) Today’s giveaway is a very challenging game that has lots of re-playability in my opinion. I’ve had it for nearly two years and still haven’t finished it yet.

I give this particular Arkanoid game 8 out of 10 for riveting game play as well as re-playability (for those who have noted my scoring previously this is one of the higher scores I reserve for games that I’ve either bought already, or will do when I have to; okay I’m a little biased here because arkanoids happen to be one of my favorite genres, but this really is an exceptional version of that classic genre. There are games that I’d score higher for though, for example, Switch Ball a fantastic marble maneuvering game and the recently given away Infinite Jigsaw Puzzle and even Magic Farm though I scored that a seven initially.



notes

The idea of using more than one bat isn’t new though as we all know that the first ever arcade game used two bats, though not with such beautiful graphics. Also there are at least three games to my knowledge that use more than one bat. For example Quadronoid got there before Ball 7, and went one further with the ability to select from one, two, three or four bats; but in my opinion, Ball 7 is probably the best of the multi bat games. Quadronoid does have a levels editor, but the overall game play doesn’t just come up to the game play of today’s offering. You can check the demo out at:

http://www.tomdownload.com/games/arcade/quadronoid.htm

There’s also Little Gods a beautifully rendered gothic styled breakout/pong clone and a faster paced but no less gorgeous game called Rival ball Tournament. Both combine pong with different styles of breakout and both as well as Ball 7 should be found in all casual gamers library of games.

Little Gods: The first link is to a review

http://www.gametunnel.com/gamespace.php?id=239&tab=3

http://www.sofotex.com/Little-Gods-download_L33000.html


RivalBall Tournament:

http://www.gametunnel.com/gamespace.php?id=164

Check out the following link that has a growing number of freeware (and commercial) arkanoids and breakouts listed:

Arkanoids and Breakouts: A list of decent freeware (and not so free):

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2607?replies=57

and for the review and download link for Poing:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2525?replies=14

If you wish to change the music that’s located in the games folder you will need an audio converter to first convert your mp3 and WAV files to the ogg format. Once that’s been done, you then have to rename the files you’re using with the ones that are being replaced. You can download a suitable audio converter from the freeware library to do that. There’s nothing like having your favorite music playing when playing an arcade game :)

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/2007/08/30/free-mp3-wma-converter/

or

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/2007/07/30/free-mp3-wma-wav-converter/



Thank you Merscom LLC and the Game Giveaway team for repeating this superb brick busting game.

ok........ down loaded it installed it tried it don't like it want to uninstall it but...... there is no uninstall button & it doesn't show up in "Add or remove programs" in the control panel.

DOWNLOADED FINE, NICE GRAPHICS, SMOOTH PLAYING, ONLY THING I DID NOT LIKE WAS AGAIN ANOTHER GAME THAT DOES NOT DO A SETUP, UNPACKS A FEW FOLDERS ALL OVER THE PLACE ON THE HARD DRIVE, HAD TO HUNT THEM DOWN TO FIND THE WAY TO START THE GAME, HIGHLY RECOMMEND ADDING A NEW FOLDER IN MY DOCUMENTS AND UNPACK EVERYTHING THERE FOR THE EASY WAY TO FIND EVERYTHING, FIND THE BLACK AND WHITE NUMBER 7 ICON RIGHT CLICK AND SEND IT TO YOUR DESKTOP, NOW YOU CAN PLAY THIS AWESOME GAME, SURE WAS A PAIN IN THE BUTTTTTTT TO GET IT RIGHT TO PLAY

I'm tired of games that unzip to the games folder instead of giving you a link in the start menu. Other than that, this particular game is a decent enough ball breaker.

Why cant you get some games from Big fish games?

Does not work On Vista...shame I was Looking forward to some games of this type since I lost all my others, had a computer melt down,, bought a new computer.....so I am stuck with the vista, looks like a neat game. which I will go and download this to my laptop which is xp, I do Like Xp OS better, but like with all changes it is just something I will have to get used to , as you can't even find computers with the XP OS now unless You buy online...and they said that by next year they will even be stopping the sell of XP OS.
Waiting for the next arkanoid game, I love this site , You are awesome.
Kathy

Crashed after 1st level for me, speed changes randomly, and no uninstall.
Poo.

Vista is not rubbish,
Service pack 1 is released and vista is very stable.
It is just when Idiot users try to install it on outdated hardware that it crashes or gives problem.

Vista has a much more reliable kernel, much more reliable file handling, it's just more reliable, and gives real time data, instead of faked data like xp gives when you copy files and think you're finished, but xp hasn't flushed the memory buffer yet, but does say it's finished.

XP is fun... but outdated.

Games should be made compatible, and they WOULD be, if the developpers WOULD STICK TO MICRSOFT CODING GUIDELINES instead of being lazy.

Not a bad little game if you like arkanoid clones nice twists with it.

#18 get a grip. There were operating systems before Vista shocking as it might seem, and might i add a good one called XP. Most of these games were written b4 Vista came out so why would they bother updating it for that garbage OS? Not only do i know so many ppl who have gone back to XP, i just got a new dual core for Xmas and the place i got it refuses to get Vista because its crap. How would you like it if i told you you should switch back to XP?

As for the game, yes its another arkanoid type game but it is quite a bit more fun than the average one. Thanks GGAOTD and Merscom!

@#18 - are you related to Bill G or just work in his marketing dept.?

Get real, GOTD isn't just for your convenience, neither are the developers. Many people don't have Vista, many more have changed away from it. There is still a large market for items that don't run on -your- OS. If you had Linux would you complain about that too? Developers tend to address the -major- market. The conversion of certain software to Vista is not trivial. It may not even be worthwhile. You don't like it find another service, that's what this is, a service, to many, not your private one, or start your own.

I will be un-installing this rubbish. Downloaded ok and installed ok..........but as soon as I try to play it it gets to loading stage then gives an error and has to close. Why ..oh why...can't these problems be sorted before they are unleashed on the public?????

Best break-out ever! Awesome look and feel. I love the levels where you have 2 paddles across from each other. I almost didn't download it when I saw the current rating. Thanks to one of the posters linking back to when it was offered in the past, and had 90%.
This is a keeper.

@18, Lisa: So you think GOATD should only release Vista compatible games and apps just because it's the most recent operating system?!? No matter how many people actually use it?

Did not work on my XP Service pack 2 Pentium 4 2.80GHz
128MB Graphic 1G Ram PC.
So I can't give reviews on this one.
Maybe it did not like the way it placed the game without Installer.

bon bah j'aime bien les graphiques mais manipuler 4 palettes en meme temps cest pas facile

Please do not share software that is not compatable with Vista. It is really outdated now to share stuff that won't work. Vista compatable software is the only feasable thing now a days. Please consider that when sharing here as well.
Thank You

From the Home page: Your operating system appears to be Microsoft Windows Vista. Please note that we have not fully certified Ball 7 for compatibility with Vista. We apologize for any inconvenience.


And then it locks up. Enough said.

F

I have played a lot of break out style games. They all are pretty much the same boring boink, boink, boink.. This one I would have to say has many different balls, bounces and giveme's. I love the pong style boards, a lot different than most. Really good graphics. The sound sets my sub woofer and desk to vibrating. If I was to buy a break out game it would be this one. So far I would say its the best break out style game the has been given away on this site.
The only bad thing is it is another one of those hide and seek exe start file games. I would give this game a 9/10 if it wasn't for the hide and seek exe file in the c/games folder I would give it a 10 out of 10. I love break out style games, and this one is a keeper, I will even put it on my laptop..

Awesome!!

Definately the BEST breakout style game I've seen so far. Great effects , cool arcade sounds, and nice playfield variety. Much more professional in quality than the Neoball/Roboball/[etc]ball variations that keep being released.

Thumbs up from me.

Update!!

Doesn't seem to work in 64bit Vista Ult.

Game unzips fine (no installer, just unzips files where ever you want)

When game loads, it hangs on the "loading" screen. Not sure what to make of it. Doesn't work.

Program will not install, it just unzips to a games folder then when I run the exe it fails to respond. Come on guys write the software correctly so we don't have to scratch our heads.

Looks interesting...

another "brick breaker"