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| Ball Rush Aqua by Herocraft |
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Personally, I wasn't sure what to expect with this game. Ball Rush Aqua sounds more like a bad Saturday morning dodgeball cartoon than a Pocket PC game. As it turns out, however, Bull Rush Aqua is actually an entertaining update on the Arkanoid genre with enough twists to actually hold my attention.
Ball Rush Aqua is the type of game where you have a paddle at the bottom of the screen, and you must bounce a ball towards the top of the screen, where several rows of bricks are waiting to be broken. Bull Rush Aqua's strongest innovation is the use of several screens to comprise a level. The ball falling through the floor on the first screen is the only way you can lose, and you only have to destroy all of the blocks on the last screen of the level in order to beat the level. To compensate for only having to clear one screen per level, the developers made sure it wasn't easy to pass through the in-between screens. There are several different types of blocks in the land of Bull Rush Aqua. As expected you have the standard breakable blocks, and depending on their color you might have to hit them multiple times to destroy them. Then you have the "indestructible" blocks, which are pretty well permanent with a couple of exceptions. One of those exceptions is the bomb block, which when struck blows up all blocks immediately surrounding it. Next you have blocks that regenerate after a certain amount of time, and blocks that spawn new blocks when struck. Finally there's the teleport block. This block transports you to another teleport block on the same screen. While an interesting concept, more often than not it creates some frustrating situations when trying to complete levels.
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On the plus side, there are quite a few bonuses to help you get to the top. I won't list all of them, but here are some of the highlights. The sticky bonus causes the ball to stick when it hits your paddle, so you can somewhat direct where the ball is going. The bumper bonus puts a wall at the bottom of the screen so the ball can't get away from you. A missile bonus sends one weapon towards the top of the screen, destroying all in its path, including those pesky indestructible blocks. The auto-pilot takes control of your paddle for 30 seconds, making sure that you never miss the ball when it’s coming down. Of course, it doesn’t care if you miss bonuses! The final one that I’ll mention is the remote control. When you have this bonus, you press up on the d-pad to turn the ball counter-clockwise and down to turn it clockwise. So far I’ve found this particular bonus to be more of a hindrance than a help, as the ball usually doesn’t end up going the way I want it to.
While I’ve definitely enjoyed this more than most of the other variants of this game on both the PocketPC and PC platforms, I’m still not totally sure I’m sold on the genre. Bull Rush Aqua suffers from some of the same flaws that its predecessors do, and introduces some of its own due to the unique level design. You can often spend a lot more time than desired on a particular screen because you can’t quite get those last couple of bricks to either finish a level or create an opening at the top to pass through to the next screen. A couple of times, my ball got stuck bouncing back and forth between the two side walls, which meant I had to wait until it got up high enough to actually collide with a brick or come down low enough for me to hit it with my paddle. Once I think it took 2-3 minutes for that to happen. Because of the “several screens to a level” methodology, you often find yourself traipsing back and forth between screens you’ve seen many times because you just missed the ball before it fell through the floor. I also feel that several of the screens abuse the use of teleports and indestructible blocks, often creating situations where the ball just keeps bouncing back and forth for minutes on end. You don’t want to kill the level and start over, but you really don’t feel like sitting there watching the ball smack aimlessly into bricks that will never go away, either.
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The graphics in Bull Rush Aqua are quite nice. The menu interface is very stylish, and the in-game levels look good. I especially like the sea background with the fish swimming in it (though you can turn this off if you have a slower machine). Some of the bonuses, such as the sticky and guns power-ups look pretty sleek as well. The only thing I didn’t care for was the grid lines. It gives the game a very tile-based feel. Even though I know the game is tile-based, I don’t need a visual reminder like that.
While for the most part not really noteworthy, the sound effects do a fine job of accenting the gameplay. The shattering ice sound is pretty cool, but that’s the only one that really sticks out. I do rather enjoy the music in this game, and it’s refreshing that they’ve chosen to play it all throughout the game instead of just during the menu selection process.
I’m still I bit puzzled as to how this particular style of game has transcended the ages, but this is definitely one of the closest attempts at converting me into a believer. The polished aesthetics, unique multi-screen level concept, and attempt at interesting new bonuses and block types make Ball Rush Aqua stand above the crowd. If you like Arkanoid style games, there’s no reason not to get a copy of this one. If it isn’t your cup of tea, I’d at least give the demo a try. You might actually get breakout fever.
Overall Score: 7/10
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