Dx Ball Review

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Game Description

Classic Brick Breaker Like Arkanoid

You have seen this game style before. DX Ball continues where Pong, Arkanoid and other games before it left off. A ball is bouncing around and breaking bricks. You bounce it back up to break more and if you let the ball pass your paddle, then you lose a life. Advance to the next level by breaking all the bricks.

Of course it seems too simple to be addicting. But that is the beauty of DX Ball. The simplicity means you don't have to spend hours climbing a learning curve before it is fun. You can download the game and have fun playing immediately... for FREE.

Lots of Power Ups to Grab

Why spend the rest of the afternoon learning a new game when you can get started with DX Ball right away. Enjoy power ups and other creative spins to this classic genre.

Some of the cool options in DX Ball are: Lasers, Grab Paddle, Fireball, Explosion, Extra Life, Grow Bricks, Next Level, Slow Ball, Through Ball and a few others you can find out by playing and downloading this game! Are you still reading? Download DX Ball and start having fun right away!

Dx Ball Review

It’s Time to Break Out!

Are you familiar with the old block-breaking game of Breakout? It was a challenging little classic that had you break apart rows upon rows of shiny little blocks using a ball that you had to ensure never hit the ground. This is not that game. It’s very similar though.

DX-Ball is an independently-made game that was developed in the ‘90s that operates under a lot of similar design principles as Breakout. At first blush, it might look really derivative, and you would not be entirely wrong in thinking so. However, that does not mean it can’t be just as fun its progenitor. Even so, DX-Ball still has a few tricks up its sleeve that help it stand out in the crowd. Besides, you could do a whole lot worse for a game that’s completely free to play.

Easy to Learn, Hard to Put Down

Like all the various clones of Breakout that came before and after it, DX-Ball plays like a combination of pinball and Pong. You control a paddle with your mouse and use it to keep a little white ball aloft in the air. Failure to do so results in you losing a life.

In the meantime, you have to use the ball to destroy an array of blocks above you. Some blocks go down with a single hit. Others need to be whacked several times. Some are invisible and will only appear once the ball collides with them once. Some blocks are indestructible, some blow up at the slightest touch, and so on.

It may not sound exciting at first, by DX-Ball manages to mix things up with its variety of power-ups. Some blocks will release a power-up when they are destroyed; if you catch it with your paddle, you can benefit from any number of boons. You can increase the size of your paddle, add more balls to bounce around, get the ability to catch and strategically re-launch the ball at your whim, or equip your paddle with a pair of blasters to shoot and destroy blocks in an instant. Powers stack as well, so if you’re able to nab each one that comes your way, keeping that ball up in the air can be a piece of cake.

However, not all power-ups are so benign. Just to mess around with you, DX-Ball incorporates a variety of power-downs that can make things harder if you make the mistake of grabbing them. They can have all sorts of negative effects; one can shrink your paddle, one will cause the blocks to sink lower every time the ball bounces, one will increase the movement speed of the ball, and one will even outright kill you!

The power-ups and power-downs of DX-Ball make it far more dynamic and unpredictable than your usual Breakout clone. You have no idea just what’s going to pop up on every screen. Sometimes a level will be over in a flash because you got a good combination of abilities. Other times, it could take a good while before anything decent comes your way.

Either way, you could easily call this game the Super Mario Bros. of Breakout clones. DX-Ball would be fun for a few minutes on its own, but the assorted abilities you can receive at any time seal the deal and increase the replay value. It can be a very difficult game to put down. You might tell yourself: “Just one more game and I'll be done for the day,” but you’ll be back for another round in short order.

It’s Not Always So Bouncy

Unfortunately, as much as luck can be your best friend, it’s just as likely going to be your worst enemy. Progress in DX-Ball often comes down to how lucky you are. Sometimes the power-ups will rain on you like it’s the first day of spring. Other times, the well will dry up and you’ll be left with a plain old paddle and ball.

Make no mistake; DX-Ball is not necessarily hard without the power-ups. It’s just that since you have so little direct control over where the ball bounces, nailing the last few blocks in a level can be an incredibly tedious experience. The only way to change the ball’s bounce, speed or direction without the use of a power-up is with proper timing and control of the paddle. Even that is pretty unreliable, and that’s assuming you can even pull the trick off in the first place.

To be fair, the game will happily throw you a bone and bring you to the next level if a single block is left untouched for too long. However, that won’t do you any favors if there are still several remaining. It does not help that the game’s physics are so primitive and simplistic that the ball can bounce in a cyclical pattern more easily than it really has any right to.

Broken, But Fun

DX-Ball has a number of issues that can make it more frustrating than fun at times. However, like how the ball always falls back to the ground, it’s a shockingly easy game to come crawling back to. Maybe it’s because no matter how sour things went last time, you just know you might be able to push on a little further next time. Maybe you’ll get a better ability in that level you died in or maybe you’ll waste fewer lives in the previous ones.

Whatever the case may be, DX-Ball is an amusing diversion that you can play for free on most any kind of computer these days. That should count for something.

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