Everyone knows the first video game ever made was Pong.  Pong had a fairly simple concept: two paddles, one of each side of the screen, bounce a ball back and forth.  Get the ball past your opponent’s paddle and you score a point.  From these humble roots sprung countless children ignoring calls for dinner; thousands of husbands ignoring their wives to play John Madden Football; and whole communities of online Warcraft adventures.  Before all that, however, one of the first variations on the Pong concept, was Breakout.  Breakout replaced one of the paddles with a wall of bricks, turning pong into a solitaire game.  Destroy all of the bricks to advance to the next level.  Since that time, the concept of the brick breaking game has evolved considerably, adding customized bricks, paddles, balls, and even layouts.  The game remains the same, however, destroy all of the bricks on the screen.  There are literally hundreds of variations on this concept, but I have never seen one quite like HeroCraft’s Ball Rush Aqua.

Installation and Registration: Simply download the desktop installer and install the program via ActiveSync.  You will be provided with a limited trial.  Register to unlock the full game.

GamePlay: As I mentioned, this is the latest entry into a relatively crowded field of brick breaker (also referred to as Arkanoid Clones) games.  Gameplay is similar to other games in this genre, you control a paddle which you must use to keep the ball moving. Bounce the ball against the bricks to break them and potentially release bonus power-ups. 

Ball Rush Aqua, however, added a refreshing twist to this format.  Typically, in brick breaking games, you clear a level by destroying all of the bricks.  If the ball falls off the bottom of the screen, then you lose a life.  This game breaks out of that mold.  Here, each level consists of a ladder sequence of screens.  The object of each level is to clear the top rung of the ladder.  On each intermediary step (including the first one), your goal is not necessarily to clear the bricks, but only to clear a path to pass on to the next rung of the ladder (do this by shooting your ball through the top of the screen.)  If you drop a ball, then you will go back down to catch it at the previous rung of the ladder.  Drop the ball on the first rung, however, and your game is over. 

Levels: The levels in this game were a lot of fun.  Each is named after a generic body of water (pond, lake, waterfall, etc…).   There are ten levels, and each consists of a ladder with an increasing number of rungs.  I enjoyed the creativity put into this naming convention, however, I did start to feel that the backgrounds in each level were surprisingly similar.  I would have liked the developers to pay more attention to the backgrounds, and give each level its own unique feel.

Saving: I appreciated the save feature in this game.  As I have often said, I frequently play games in short periods of time, causing me to rely upon the save features in games.  Once you complete a level in Ball Rush Aqua by clearing all of the bricks from the top rung of the ladder, your game is saved.  You can start a new game from the beginning of any level you have completed.  It would be nice to be able to save in the middle of a level and return to the game at a later time, but the levels are typically short enough that this has not been a significant problem.

Blocks: The official description of this game indicates that there are 13 types of blocks.  I found this misleading.  Many of the blocks exhibited the exact same behavior, with a slightly different appearance.  For example, there are several blocks which regenerate after you strike them.  I would not consider these to be different blocks, but variations of the same block.

Likewise, the most common block is what I call a sequence.  These blocks, cycle through a four-color sequence (blue-purple-red-yellow).  If you strike one, it will move to the next color in the sequence.  To destroy the brick, you must strike when it is yellow.

There are several other brick variants, but overall, I was disappointed by the uniformity of the bricks across the various levels.  Although there were slight variations, there was very little distinction between levels.  This game would have benefited greatly by simply changing the appearance and behavior of the bricks from one level to the next.

Bonuses: Anyone who had played a brick breaking game, from Breakout or Arkanoid to the present knows the value of bonuses.  These come in the form of power-up modules which drop from certain bricks when they are destroyed.  This game boasts 13 bonuses, many of which are extremely original.  For example, you can grab the remote control ball and control the path your ball follows.  Grab the purple ball and you will pass through all but the most solid bricks.  The bonuses in a brick breaking game can make a huge difference in the way the game is played.  The bonuses in this game are plentiful and, as I mentioned, extremely original, which was refreshing.  I only wish that the hieroglyphics on the sides of the bonus modules had been easier to understand.  Frequently, I would have no idea what bonus I grabbed until it had already hit my paddle.  Nonetheless, this did not significantly affect my enjoyment of the game.

Graphics: Ball Rush Aqua offers rich backgrounds, which include swimming fish and air bubbles generated by your paddle.  This gives the game an overall feel of playing underwater (hence the name Ball Rush Aqua).  The paddle and bricks are all well drawn in vibrant colors.  I thoroughly enjoyed the graphics, although I did find them to be somewhat homogenous.  As I have said, although the levels were all well drawn, there was nothing to set one level apart from the next.  I would have preferred that each level have its own unique feel.  This would have significantly improved my experience with this game.  As it was, I simply grew bored of seeing the same or significantly similar backgrounds and bricks in each level. 

Conclusion: This is a good clone of the classic brick breaking genre.  I thoroughly enjoyed the unique interpretation of creating a ladder sequence within each level.  This added a whole new and original element to the game.  The graphics were well drawn with bright vibrant colors, but grew stale after the first few levels by not adding additional elements to the game.  Nonetheless, gameplay was enjoyable, and if you are familiar with the brick breaking genre, you will likely be intriqued by the original elements and bonuses found in this game.  Overall, however, the lack of variety in the backgrounds and bricks made this game grow quickly stale.

Vital Statistics:

Name: Ball Rush Aqua

Version: 1.0

Platform: WM 2003 SE

Also Available: WM5, Palm OS, Smartphone,  Series 60 (Nokia), Series 60 version 3, UIQ 

Developer: HeroCraft 

Available From: HeroCraft

                           JAMM Store

 Price: $14.97

Technorati Tags: HeroCraft – Ball – Rush – Aqua – Just – Another – Mobile – Monday – Brick Breaker

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