Ballsy – Breakout Style Game

Available In: App Store

Price: $1.99

I was never really good at Arkanoid. For some reason, versions of this game often are quick to be reproduced and released on portable gaming platforms. I’m sure I have a free version of this game on my iPhone somewhere. Fortunately for me, Ballsy (let’s get over the name fast, since I’ll be using it several times in this review, shall we?) offers a different type of game from Arkanoid that makes it more easily playable and potentially more enjoyable.

Overview
Ballsy is a simple breakout type game with the additional feature of allowing you to control the horizontal movement of the ball. Your goal is to collide your ball with the blocks and you can only break blocks with the current matching color. Special blocks can change your current color, but skull and crossbone blocks will ultimately lead to your doom. Options include changing the speed which will give you higher bonuses, tracking local and worldwide high scores, and the ability to resume saved games.

Brick by Brick
Similar to Arkanoid, I was playing this game with ease within seconds. The gameplay was a bit slower than a typical breakout game, so I seemed to have better control of where the ball was going. Plus, the ability to guide the ball left and right was a nice addition and gave me a better sense of control. The graphics are solid, though simple, and the sound is ample (seems like they had a lot of fun saying “3-2-1”). Overall, it’s a bit easier than Arkanoid to proceed through levels, and there can be a strategic element to the game when you have to carefully consider which color blocks you should be breaking.

Now, that’s ballsy.
Although I did enjoy having more control over the ball’s movement, the physics in the game was slightly jumpy at times. It was particularly frustrating to run into the “death” blocks on a diagonal, and even more so when you hit it with only a few blocks remaining. One downside to the reduced speed of the game is that it can be extremely annoying to start the same stage from the beginning several times if you hit those “death” blocks. One workaround would be to save your game frequently since it allows you to resume your stage from the saved game slot.

Conclusion
Ballsy is a solid app, and I can see why it has received overwhelmingly positive reviews (though few overall in number). It is on sale for $1.99 in the App Store, and I’d be comfortable recommending it if you like breakout type games and are in the market for a slightly different one with more of a puzzle component to it. There is a lite version currently available, so I encourage you to try it out if you are seemingly interested. Other than that, the only question remaining is when will they change that interesting choice of a name.