In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life, and this week we have: Hyperballoid 2: Time Rider

In the beginning there was Pong – a story about a paddle batting around a ball to thwart their enemy that just so happened to be another paddle. Who knew that so many years later, when next-gen systems have come and gone, we’d still be playing games where the core dynamic of the gameplay is still a paddle bouncing a ball around the screen.

Hyperballoid 2: Time Rider (Hyperballoid 2 from here on) plays like a next-gen version of the old Breakout games, where it’s your goal to keep bouncing balls around the screen, using your paddle to stop them from passing by you, and using those balls to destroy all the bricks on the screen; at its core Hyperballoid 2 is the exact same game I remember once playing on my old fat Gameboy so many years ago, so it’s a shame that the genre is still pretty much the same despite all the years having passed us by. Thankfully there are a few new gimmicks here and there to spice the game up slightly.

You’re still bouncing balls around the screen like back in the good ol’ days, but at least there is more interaction with the environment this time around instead of seeing nothing but stationary blocks and the occasional level that had some scrawling sections from time to time. Hyperballoid 2 is split into several campaigns, which you can start and stop at any time, and which all have their own unique themes. You’ve got an ancient world campaign, original world, futuristic world, etc; though in the end the gameplay remains the same and only the backgrounds and board pieces and designs ever change things up. As we were saying, there is more board interaction this time around, such as we saw with the ancient world campaign, where we saw a Trojan horse roll onto the screen and deposit more blocks like troops, a level that had a teeter-tottering scale, and one that had a ship that looked as if it was sailing across the sea.

Another way Hyperballoid 2 has mixed things up is by including a wide variety of powerups, which can be helpful (green), potentially helpful or harmful (yellow), or bad (red). The green powerups include things like giving you three balls at once, shooting lightning vertically or horizontally, giving you a free bumper should a ball pass your paddle, giving your ball one of several helpful powers to destroy bricks with ease, and even the ability to manually grab your ball and hold it for a new shot. The yellow powerups include mostly powerups to slow or speed up your balls. The red powerups include things like making your paddle invisible so you instantly lose that ball and a life and other powerups that shrink your balls and shorten your paddle. The powerups are ultimately what help make the game somewhat fun and interesting to play, as they switch up the gameplay enough to make this old genre a tiny bit fun. The controls are also really easy to use, as most of all the action is simply controlled by the sliding of your mouse left and right or using a left mouse button click to activate a power or so; other than that, however, there aren’t really anymore controls.

The graphics are mostly nothing but blocks and balls of varying colors, shapes, and sizes, but given that the game still looks pretty good, featuring some nice animations, beautiful background designs, and plenty of exploding and sparkling blocks and jewels to make the game’s graphics a little above-average. The sound, however, is pretty standard, though it’s nice that not every block breaks with the exact same sound.

If you’re an old fan of the Breakout games then you should love what you find with Hyperballoid 2: Time Rider. If, however, you found yourself boring of that game really quick and your idea of fun isn’t breaking bricks over and over, you won’t find anything in this game to change your mind and convince you otherwise. Fans of the genre will dig the game, but others need not apply.

Rating:
Our Scoring System

Download The Demo Or Buy The Game At Playfirst

or buy the game at BigFish Games