REVIEW: Breakout clone Another Ball version 1.8 by Paragon Software

Menneisyys · 07-25-06, 06:51 AM

This title isn’t particularly new (not even the latest, 1.8 version, which was released some 3 months ago); the only reason I review it is its excellent platform compliance and that great Pocket PC gaming site PocketGamer.org has just published a news item on it. Even the latest version released in April supports 6-year-old Pocket PC’s with MIPS and SH3 CPU’s and, given that the currently available Breakout titles for the latter (SH3) platform tends to null.

Availability

The game is available here (a 4-map demo version available) for $14.95.

Compliance

The game runs just great on all my test devices. On the slower ones (the slowest 150 MHz MIPS Casio E-125 and the, with today’s standards, a bit slow PPC2k2 iPAQ 3660 and WM5 195 MHz TI HTC Wizard) the animation is a bit slower but the playability is still great and there’re no sound problems (the in-game music is played without any kind of hitches – even on the E-125). On current and/or faster ones (WM2003 QVGA iPAQ 2210, WM5-upgraded VGA iPAQ hx4700, WM5 VGA x51v with ROM version A12, WM2003SE VGA Pocket Loox 720), the animation is very smooth and the game runs great.

All in all, the game has absolutely no compatibility problems and runs on even the slowest devices.

The Palm version

…, which is available here, was last updated this February and only uses HiRes (no Landscape HiRes+ on HiRes+ Palm OS devices – this is a pity), is completely different from the Pocket PC one. First, it has no in-game music (the single PRC file of the game of is around 200 kbytes – that is, there would be no place to have the three XM music files, which take up about 445 kbytes in the Pocket PC version). Second, it has a much duller graphics operating with far fewer colors and far simpler shapes. See the generic superiority of the Windows Mobile OS over Palm OS? ;)

The only advantage of the Palm OS version are the much more sophisticated stereo sound effects. Unlike the PPC version (which only has three directions of the sound – either from the far left, the far right and the center), the Palm version uses a much more sophisticated sound effect engine with multi directions. I wish the PPC version implemented the same.

Music

The in-game music is stored in the three .xm (Extended Module) files in the Sound subdirectory of the game’s home directory (when installed to the main storage, \Program Files\Another Ball). You can freely transfer them to your desktop PC and listen to them there (with, say, WINAMP). Also, you can just change them to other XM files you’d prefer listening to in the game if you find the default music of Another Ball far too repetitive. (Unfortunately, one of the Pocket PC titles with the best sampled music, TapzMania – see the Definitive Multiplayer PPC Game Roundup for a review - stores its music in .mod files, which are incompatible with .xm files and will cause an exception if you try to swap the XM files for them under Another Ball. You may, however, want to try to convert these to .xm.)

Compared to current ARM Breakout clones

Acky's XP Breakout: Acky is just far better for the same price (it costs $14.95), especially in the in-game music department, in the native support for Portrait/Landscape orientation (you can play the game in both orientations) and VGA.

Spb Arkaball II (also part of Spb AirIslands): well, hard to decide between the two titles. Spb Arkaball II is definitely cheaper ($9.95) and supports VGA natively. Its in-game music and sound effects are, however, in my opinion, far inferior to that of Another Ball (and you can't change the in-game music in the former).

Compared to old, also MIPS-compatible games

About the same quality as that of Active Ball 1.1 by Ballshooter and Bust'em 1.21 by Digital Concepts (Douglas Beck). Definitely better than Pocket Breakout by 4pockets (on 150 MHz E-125 Pocket PC’s; if you have an E-750 or an overclocked E-125, you may find the 4pockets title much better), Cubicle Chaos (in Microsoft Games PocketPak), Ricochet 1.03 by Astraware, BallStorm v1.0 by Swivel Creations UK and Pocket Bovine Breakout by Cow Games.

Also see the Roundup of All Pocket PC Games Part I for more info on these titles.

Verdict

For users of current Pocket PC models, Acky's XP Breakout is a definitely better choice if you want great in-game music, VGA and (choosable) Landscape screen orientation support. Another Ball isn’t in any way a bad title though – you may still want to give it a try.

If you have an old MIPS or, particularly, a SH3 Pocket PC 2000 device in the drawer somewhere and you’d like to play a game on it, you really want to give this title a try, however.