Brick Breaker Deluxe 3D

Brick Breaker Deluxe 3D.If a game is worth making twice you might as well make it thrice. Several months after we were done reviewing the iphone version of 3D BB Revolution 2, Digital Chocolate have released it on java. As we pride ourselves on being thorough, as opposed to fast, we thought we might as well give it a go. And you know what? It's not a bad game.

For a start the 3D graphis look pretty slick. The screen even shifts perspective slightly, almost tilting if you like, when your ball comes back at the edge of the screen. Blocks and power ups are colourful and the nuke effect is pretty cool. The modes are the same as the iphone as I'm guessing are the bosses (I don't have an iphone!! Waaaaa!!). And there are plenty of achievements for you to try and gain when you defeat bosses and hit target numbers of bricks.

Like the iphone game, there is a key block which unlocks the top part of the screen allowing you to switch to the next level. In this way it can be quick to whizz through to the boss, but as mentioned, sometimes when you miss you can drop down to the previous level, although I'm not sure what instances qualify this. Also, a bit like the iphone the game can be slightly unresponsive at times. What bugged me the most is that there were plenty of times I was sure the edge of my paddle was in the right place to clip the ball, but apparently it wasn't, causing me to lose a life. Maybe the hit box needs a little bit of work, but this was by far the most annoying feature of the game.

As was also stated by my esteemed colleague, it can sometimes be too easy to lose a life. When you progress to the next level, the game starts immediately so you have to be very quick in making sure your paddle is in the right place. Thankfully when pausing the game, the developers have wisely given you a 3 second countdown before it starts again so you can be ready for anything. Your progess is saved after each boss battle and the difficulty levels adjusted, which is quite cool.

One thing that has been mentioned before and is worth mentioning again is the plethora of powerups (I coined it first) that you can get. There are bucketloads and some are good (green) and some bad (red). It got to the point where you have to be careful in returning the ball so you don't get a bad powerup. The good ones were pretty cool including the mine, rocket and nuke. You can store them too and switch using 2 and 8 so the ability to choose is quite helpful.