Great post, I really enjoyed it. I will have to bookmark this site for later.

This is like a port of Shufflepuck Cafe done by Domark and Broderbund in the 80's

"the size, 84 mb, is not that big if it was a game worth playing"

Everything else you wrote, bluemagica, is entirely true. The game was a train wreck. For probably the best version of pong every made (faint praise, I realize) grab PlasmaPong. Its system requirements aren't entirely trivial though--once you see it in action you'll know why.

Sorry to dump on the procedings. Was simply flabbergasted by 85 megs being a complaint in this day and age. I'm not being elitist here: 30 megs of storage cost a couple hundred dollars...twenty years ago. Same $200 dollars today is 400 gigs. The dial-up download situation is more of an issue, but it's still minutes, not hours.

the size, 84 mb, is not that big if it was a game worth playing.....the sprites are 3d models while simple 2d sprites or 3d renders would have sufficed, video file when played in VLC player played only audio first time,and then a glitchy video.....i dont know what the different strengths of my opponents were, but they all were super fast and were complete idiots, i dont think there is any proper AI, plus no matter how much i score i always lose....Seriously i lost with score of 6-1 and a draw game....idiotic..i dont know how could someone release such a mess, oh and not to forget, they are also trying to sell this stuff....i would seriously like to see the person who will pay for this "game"...total disaster.

Thanks for the correction Helloc, no offence taken whatsoever. I'm always open to misconceptions and your analogy was excellent. That's not nit picking (perish the thought lol) I am no expert on these matters, just an interested layman and am always happy to be corrected as knowledge is great..

I also have to agree with Madz regarding Magnussoft’s games. Virtually all of them have had one problem or more, from the very poor physics of Barkanoid, and Aquanoid to Art Mahjong and even Donkey Kong. Most though have had a lot of potential and this one is no less a candidate for that accolade if only it/they were finished properly.

I still couldn't find the AVI file that you mentioned Revelation 23, but it doesn't matter as I decided to uninstall it as I never got around to getting one of the other computers to work to see if it did play any better on a single core computer. :( Pity it's such a bad game as I like the concept. Having those monsters with different attributes is a great idea, and all seemed to have their own distinctive voices as well.

I also agree with what mapsking says about the improvements that need to be carried out to make this a worthwhile game to download.

For an arcade game many of which are around 3Mb to 10 Mb this is a 'massive' game as are most of Magnussofts games. But compared to games such as MOH - Airborne, COD 4, Bioshock, Crysis and many of the more recent games it is a piddling amount I agree. However, most people won’t be downloading those games from an arcade dealer; they will be bought from a shop, on a disc like most big games. Before you make the point that some of these games are available to download online and all are available as demos, I very much doubt the dial up users here would be downloading them. For dial up this particular game of 84Mb is a massive file. Why be so pernickety about a word? Most people here do actually understand my meaning, thankfully. :) no offence meant though I just find I have to explain some of the misconceptions that some people make about my reviews.
By the way Narfits, my Battlefield 2 folder is approaching 200Gb, now that is some gigantic size for a game, thanks to the mod community. :)

Thanks Jack and lol to shultis :D

Thank gang,
I'll save my time and disk space.
There is too many downside for me to take any chances

Just wondering how difficult it is for others to just scroll past the long comments? You just don't have to read them, really. :) I find both the extensive reviews, and the short.. "this game sucks" to be helpful in deciding to download or pass.

Funny how when the game REALLY sucks, no one says:

"It's Free.. why do you complain about it, you should go somewhere else"


Cool thing is, today the comments are better than the game.

No, 84 MB is not "massive", but it certainly limits who can get it. If I'm not mistaken, the majority of internet users are still on dial-up. Broadband isn't everywhere, nor is it something everyone can rely on or afford, depending on who offers it and what else you may have to get in order to get that spiffy modem.

How many dial-up users are gamers forced to sit through overnight downloads that might fail or otherwise pass on stuff they'd like, I don't really know. Dial-up is far from extinct.

This one could've been smaller, albeit probably not worth it in the end.

Well, the game sucked. The physics are totally off, the reality of the puck going back and forth is absent. You're playing an alien who is lightening fast.. and then makes a stupid miss. Unbelievable. What a waste of disk drive space. Deleted. 82 MB?!?!?! OMG!

On another note, does anyone know any good free solitaire programs? We might as well get something useful out of today's giveaway time.

Peace out.

This comments section is usually way more generous in its praise than some of the games deserve, IMO, so if you folks are calling this game a loser, it must be a dog of the highest order. Thanks for the heads-up and HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!!

As others have said, the physics are horrible. The mouse controls for my PC were terrible. The puck and paddle images weren't fully transparent on my PC, producing a dithered purple background. Who would waste their hard-earned money on junk like this? Thank heavens it was free, and even at that price, it's not worth it.

The concept is good. The implementation is poor.

Like others said the table is too short, and the puck control with the mouse is rather inconsistent. It is like the mouse doesn't want to move unless there is some mouse acceleration going on.

Download if you like, but this gets a thumbs down vote from me.

magnussoft,
I refer you to this earlier giveawayoftheday as an example of the kind of improvements you need to make to this game.

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/air-hockey-3d/

We don't dislike your company---just these lousy games you've been offering us that aren't even close to your competitor's offerings. Sorry. Please...give us something that works good, and isn't so bloated we don't want to waste our time downloading it. Thanks.

82.4Mb is massive? I'm a loss for words on how to even make fun of such a claim in November 2007.


It is a terrible game though, whatever its size.

sometimes you have to just SAY NO

Ahem. Simba is also entitled to his opinion (his non-6000 word opinion) too. I for two do not appreciate White Rabbits essay length reviews for several reasons, but that doesn't mean I'm attacking him personally. You people who love to enact this double-standard way of life really need to grow up. You can't say it's perfectly fine for one person who has an illness (an irrelevant point) to write as many paragraphs as he wants, and then turn around and say some other guy who you don't even know (you guys probably don't even know White Rabbit for that matter) shouldn't be allowed to say his two sentences. My brain is aching from the hypocrisy of it all.

Whether this game is "bloated" or not, an 84mb download is nowhere NEAR massive, people. High end game DEMOS are now commonly around and over 500mb, and this is compressed information. How many of you keep up to date with CURRENT games? The average high end game will take up at least 1gig (1000mb) of space on your drive nowadays. To call a download that is under 100mb "massive" is laughable. Wake up and smell 2007 people.

The game itself is terrible, so whether it's 84mb or 5mb doesn't matter. Avoid.

Well, I might be a bit of a masochist, either that or I just have to make my own opinions on games, just like movies. I will watch them if I want, and won't if I don't, regardless of what friends/"critics" say. Anyways, this game, like so many people before me have said, is simply not worth downloading. I agree with Whiterabbit, and I think the only people who *might* *possibly* get some enjoyment out of this game would be people who are able to slow their computers down, or have an older system, (of course, then at the risk of not being to play it all). The first time I loaded the game, I got the music, the regular game screen, then just went to the black screen o' death, and still had the music. Like others, I had to ALT-F4/Task Manager to shut it down. So I tried a second time, and it worked fine. The graphics worked fine for me on Mod 1 (the default), and I did try the other ones. When I did, around the puck and both paddles, there was a rectangle of tiny green dots. The game board (table) is really shallow, not long enough, as if it were a real air hockey table. This makes for very short distances between you and your opponent, thusly making the puck very difficult to hit. Magnussoft, you need to redraw the board, so that is longer (top to bottom), giving the user more time to react. Secondly, the mouse controls the movement of your paddle, and I did not find any keyboard controls. That is fine normally, however, in this case, the controls are not consistent, especially the up/down movement. This results in a lot of frustration tryig to hit the puck, making it nearly impossible. I can not comment on the scoring, when I played, it seemed accurate, but I could never hit the puck consistently enough to even score one point. I did try both game modes, with different opponents, and got the same result.

Bottom Line is it is a great concept, but gameplay, and software/engine DEFINITELY need more work, and improvement. This could be a great game, if/when the bugs are worked out. Also, I did play the 56Mb avi file, and there was no video I could see, just audio. If that is the case, consider adding it as a separate download, for our dial-up friends as it does not seem to be necessary for the game to run.

Thanks GGAOTD and Magnussoft for this giveaway, and fellow gamers, take my advice, and nearly everyone else's on this one as it gets two thumbs down from me, and

STAY AWAY!!!!!

NoXious (#37): I don't think so. It's the kind of thing that you'd expect to see first when you run the game, a developer's splash intro, or whatever you want to call it. It's a flyaround of a temple of sorts (or something to that effect) on the moon - you see Earth for a little bit there - that opens up, revealing a sphere with Magnussoft's logo in it.

If that's the reward for finishing the game...

Regards to #21 comment. If I were that Person, I would be giving Thanks tomorrow for not having the Illness that White Rabbit has. White Rabbit is a Decent Human Being. So don't knock him Simba.
Happy Thanksgiving to All and I give Thanks for my good health.

THANKS Posters! I appreciate not wasting valuable time.
Speculation: Could the large avi file maybe be for when you finish or beat the game? Very common in other games I play.

Is it worth the developre trying to "Fix" it?

GGAOD, keep up the good work, love new freebies when they are good ones. My kid is hooked on some of your previous offerings.

No!! after 2 rounds it want to high speed !!!!!!!!!!!!

This looked like a game that I would like to play. Until I noticed who the publisher was. I have not been impressed by any of the offerings from Magnussoft. But I read through the comments to see what other users thought of the game. I will pass on this.

TY GGAOTD but think i will pass on this one don't want to get frustrated after reading the reviews :) will be back again tomorrow

@#21 simba - that person is just helping the other people to understand the game by giving a review that is assumed for people that are not tech savvy (there are some people that even don't know how to open a zip file actually). Sometimes he like to give some hardware comparison or alternative games so that other people can use it as reference whether to download or buy the games. Well, it quite lengthy but most people appreciate his review actually. Don't be so harsh.

About the game, to put a AVI file with such a huge size with this kind of game is very silly. You should find a better compression for the video file. The playfield is also too small. The previous giveaway, air hockey is far more better and challenging, I think.

I found the trend that magnussoft games are mostly buggy or have a bad physics, AI, control, etc. I think magnussoft should consider theirgames quality. Their graphics is actually nice enough (being 3d), but without proper engine, the game is not qualified for selling. Be careful, magnussoft might become another "double games" again.

WORST GAME EVER

I was actually excited to see the screenshots of this, reminded me of shufflepuck cafe on the mac.. Such a pity it doesn't live up to a black and white game decades old. :(

*nitpicking*
Ok, I know this isn't the place but I get an uncontrollable urge to correct this myth, so no offense please Whiterabbit. But a dualcore 3ghz 6ghz. It's like saying that two cars traveling at 100kph are going 200kph, they "can" pull a heavier load over a single car though. It's very minor, but I do tend to hear it alot :(

I'm a games programmer (nothing on here yet, I am thinking about it though). So maybe it explains why I find myself compelled to nitpick. Love your reviews though, so no offense I hope!

Nice game, if you have got enough resources...It works good with my computer, the graphix are nice, the sound is cool and once i played an older version on my amiga ;-) That was called shufflepuck cafe. Thanks for this retro-feeling with modern touch.

I guess I to can be added to the list of greatful people that read the comments before downloading.
I guess we can't always have the good games from, AlaWar.
Thanks as always GGAOTD. team.
Happy holiday for those of you that celebrate Thanksgiving day. Make sure you save me some of that turkey lol.

Thanks folks for all the comments, I will not be downloading this program. It's great how we can read the comments before making a BIG mistake. A grateful PC user.

After seeing the comments, I just had to see if this was as bad as everyone says. It is. Most of the time, the puck moves in slow-motion, the physics and collision detection are as bad as everyone says, and no matter whether you beat the alien 6-0 or it beats you, it says you lose. I can't believe this game works correctly on any system, it makes no sense to me that anyone would even consider releasing something in this state. The only positive thing I can say is that I didn't have any graphics problems or lag on my system (although the graphics options selection appears to have some bugs). Since it's completely useless, I uninstalled it.

LOL, I was about to hit download when I noticed all the comments.

The game is a clone of the (much better) "Shufflepuck cafe" on the Atari ST/AMIGA.

http://www.thelegacy.de/Museum/5290/

There are emulators out there like WinUAE which allow to play the original game instead of this crap. You need the emulator, the firmware of the machine (preferably the 1.3er kickstart) and the image of the game disk.

Here are the keywords to search for are

"amigamania roms"
and
"Shufflepuck cafe adf"

WinUAE can be gotten here:
http://www.winuae.net/frames/download.html

Have fun

Thanks for the info on this game, I run the same graphics card and processor as Whiterabbit and after seeing his problems, I'll also avoid at all costs now

I was excited about this as I really like air hockey in real life. The space alien bar conecpt is neat too.

But, man the game is HARD. The play field is too small and the puck will move so lightning fast, that you really can't react to it fast enough, especially with just the mouse as a control. The AI is basically reacts flawlessly too, so I was unable to win a single point in two games.

The graphics and sounds are nice. Just wish the game was playable...

Revelation 23 (#14): Thanks for the tip. It was refreshing to see a review that was to-the-point and about the GAME and not about all the poster's massive game collection, how many computers he has, or the incredibly un-fascinating history of his life. And under three billion yawn-inspiring words.
Hope you stick around.

Naaah. Boring as hell. Flash games like that are more interesting and entertaining. I'm coming back to Hyperspace Invader.

This looks like a clone of the ancient Shufflepuck Cafe, released for Amiga about 20 years ago!

The bulk of the 123 MB (unzipped/installed):

*The unused AVI - a 3D animation by Magnussoft, the kind of stuff we usually click through immediately when launching a game, except for that the game doesn't even bother to play an intro. Or it didn't for me.

*The music/sounds (mp3/wav)

*Graphics, which are essentially bitmap sprites

Without the AVI, the download would've been around 31 MB, using a test run with 7-Zip to get a file size.

Thanks so much for your comments!!!!
I now know that this game has many problems! Will not download!!!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!
SuZuDu

For what I see in the screenshots, I wonder what the 84MB are made of...

This game is terrible. Very por AI. No controls for speed of puck or paddles, Playing surface is too small for a player to react to the speed of the puck, making it virtually unplayable. Designer should go back to the drawing board on this one. Sorry Magnussoft, but this one sucks!!!I'm deleting it immediately.

Thought I'd take a crack at this.

Whiterabbit, there is an AVI. 56 MB in size, found in C:\Program Files\Nightclub Shufflepuck. At 45 seconds, I found it to be a bit long for a developer intro. Then again, it didn't even play at all when I launched the game. Maybe it's not even needed at all and wouldn't hurt the the game at all if it were left out - bringing the download down a good chunk from 84 MB.

Moving on.

Had no problems getting it to run. There are options, and the game tells you to leave things alone ujnless you have problems, mentioning that some nVidia cards my encounter issues. A couple of the music tracks are pretty good, the rest your usual background fare.

Moving on.

Decent looking at first glance. However, the "puck" moves rather slowly half the time, collision detection seemed a bit off a few times when I hit it. And I thought this was the kind of game where having the higher score was the way to win - most games are. And actually, that's supposed to be how you play this game right? Then why is a 6-1 score a losing score?

I think I'll move on. I certainly didn't expect this to tear me away from Treasures Of Montezuma (oh, so addictive) for long, but I don't think it was worth the trip. Didn't stay long. No problems exiting, though.

Sorry guys, they can't all be great games.

Thanks for this addictive game!

Crap, Crap, Crap. I could not say anything good to say about it.

it comes with a BBBB rating

Bloated
Buggy
Boring
Bad

Exact same faults as #7 posted above. and the game itself was just boring! Hey, pong was cool back in 1976 but now it's just rubbish!!!!! Next time, i'll just Code one into a PIC chip.

LOL.. I was just about to download this for my mom's laptop, but after reading the comments, I think I'll save 85 megs of her disk space. Thanks!

This is the worst airhockey game I've ever played. The game is lagging alot on my machine that I play Crysis with without problems. The score thing is all wrong, sometimes when I win, it says I have lost, also when the game is a draw. And the physics are all wacked.

This game is 80MB?I think it's TOO big,and not funny.
I downloaded and installed it,but I uninstalled it in five minutes.
I regret to download this game.>~<

crap wasted download. no control over pasddle game freezes and 3 points scored by the ai before paddle contrl returned uninstalled and deleted the file. not worth it. runnin g amd with xp pro. dont waste your time

This is a massive 82.4Mb, (and 123Mb when installed) which we’ve come to expect from Magnussoft. Although looking through the file I don’t seem to be able to account for such a large size. There’s no AVI file with this game. When you unzip the file there are two files a read me and a combined activation and set up file.

I'm afraid I couldn't play this at all. Magnussoft have given us some excellent games previously, but for me this game was so full of bugs it was shocking. It may be that it just isn't compatible with my hardware. Both the computers I've got running at the moment are dual core Athlon cpu’s running XP Pro SP2, and both use NVidia Graphics cards which the graphic card settings warns you may have issues with this game. There are 5 mod settings to use if you do have any graphical glitches. The way it was worded it did imply that it wasn’t just NVidia cards that could be problematic. I had a strange looking geometric patch around each bat and the puck whichever Mod setting I put it in and when setting it on the last one (Mod 5), the mouse pointer jut went mad, moving all over the place. I couldn’y control it at all, so went into the task manager (Cntl, Alt Del) to close the game down. Unfortunately the settings are automatically saved when you change them and the mouse continued to dance all over the place. I had to keep clicking on the mouse button in the hope that I’d catch the right moment and be able to change the mod setting, which I eventually did and it then went back to normal.

Neither of the computers would play the game properly, which is a shame as I quit like these sorts of games. . The mouse control of the bat was really jerky and the puck was so fast sometimes I couldn't see it move (does that make sense?). Then at other times it crawled like a snail. There was no difficulty setting that I could see.

There are three color depth settings 8, 16 and 32. And you have a selection of 10 music tracks which can be played in a specific order or randomly.


The game looks like it has a lot of potential, with three game modes and several monsters to play against, all supposedly with different attributes. I tried them all, but everyone was lightning fast, or so slow it got boring waiting for the puck, but even then I couldn’t hit it properly.

The actual specs you need to run this game are quite low. My fastest computer is the equivalent of 6Gb (2x3Gb). I just wonder whether this has anything to do with it? I used to have a game where you had to fly a dragon around the world. When I upgraded my computer I remember the dragon suddenly became super sonic, and I could no longer play the game. This reminds me a lot of how that game played.

Sorry Magnussoft, I can’t vote on this one today as I really do think I have a compatibility issue. I’m going to post this and then see if I can get one of my non dual core systems up and running and see if it works okay on one of those.

Sorry this is a disappointing review. The actual concept of the game I think is quite entertaining, especially for a family.


I'll tinker around at the very least and see if i can sort something, but i doubt it. I think the sixze of this is really out of the bounds of our dial up users. Beraing in mind my review; I only hope there are some more positive ones as I did thin it had potential :(