I’ve been on the lookout for a good brick breaker game online, but unfortunately most of them are low quality. Until now I’ve mostly been content to play Strike Ball 3, but recently I stumbled onto a fun game called Alpha Bounce.

Alpha Bounce is a BrickBreaker-style game with the usual paddle, cool power-ups, and different levels to play. However it also has an added element of a role-playing game, with missions to go on and a map to travel around.

Missions

You start the game looking at a map. You can move your paddle one space in any of the four directions. Wherever you land, you’ll be thrust into a different BrickBreaker-style level that you need to beat.

I mentioned there are missions. This is one example taken from the game:

In order to obtain your mining license and win your first drilling ball, you will have to collect all 3 license levels located around your position. Be sure not to leave the mission zone, the presence of ferrous conglomerates will prevent any attempt of escaping.

It has a certain translated-from-French charm, no? Don’t worry about it, just look at the map and you’ll be able to figure out what to do. The missions aren’t that complicated, at least not so far as I’ve seen. They’re just an excuse to play more online brick breaker.

Gameplay

Alpha Bounce is fun to play. First of all, most importantly, the physics of the game are satisfying. Some of the free BrickBreaker games you find online just don’t “feel right”, but that’s not the case with Alpha Bounce.

In addition, there’s good variety in the level designs and the power-ups. My favorite power-up might be the Quasar, which opens up a huge black hole in the center of the board and sucks in all nearby bricks.

Finally, there are various ways to upgrade your Alpha Bounce paddle by purchasing things from merchants inside the game. For example, one of the first things you can do is purchase a faster motor that allows you to travel 2 spaces per turn. These upgrades should keep the game interesting as I progress through it.

Fuel

Your paddle needs fuel — “hydrogen capsules” in the game’s vernacular — in order to move in any direction. You start out with 12 red hydrogen capsules and 3 green capsules.

You can use up the red capsules, but they do not replenish. You can buy more red capsules from the game’s Interstellar Bank, but they cost real money, starting at 5 Euros (about 7 US dollars at the moment) for 100 red capsules.

The 3 green capsules refresh every day. So you can play for free every day, but you can only take 3 turns. In a way, this is good — it prevents you from wasting your whole day playing Alpha Bounce. If you’re having fun, you can always buy some red capsules.

Alpha Bounce Map

No Ads

One of the best things about Alpha Bounce is there are no ads. Some of the other online brick breaker games are absolutely plastered with them. But since Alpha Bounce is supported by people purchasing red hydrogen capsules, it seems they don’t need a barrage of ads to survive. In my opinion, this is awesome.

Free Trial

To play Alpha Bounce for free, go to www.alphabounce.com. You need to sign up for a free account to play the game, but you DON’T have to provide your email address, which is a nice touch.

Get the Map

I discovered there’s an online, user-created map to help you navigate the game. This map makes the game more fun, in my opinion. Check it out!

About this Review

I reviewed Alpha Bounce on this site because I enjoy the game. The links to Alpha Bounce on this page are affiliate links. If I understand correctly, if I refer someone to Alpha Bounce and they end up buying some red hydrogen capsules, I will get a few extra red hydrogen capsules credited to my account, which is nice!

Recently I’ve been searching for a game like BrickBreaker to download and play on my PC. Luckily, I discovered Strike Ball 3 by Alawar Entertainment. Strike Ball 3 is a highly entertaining take on the BrickBreaker concept, and I recommend it to anyone looking for an enjoyable brick-blasting experience.

You can try Strike Ball 3 out for free. Just click here to visit the Strike Ball 3 page on Alawar’s Website and then click “Try It Now” to download the free trial, which allows you to play the game for 30 minutes. You can download the game immediately from their Website — you don’t need to go through a signup process or anything like that.

After just a few minutes of playing the free version, you’ll know whether it’s for you. If you like the game, you have the option to buy it.

Strike Ball 3 is actually one of many games that Alawar offers in the BrickBreaker genre. All of their games offer a free trial, so you can try them out before buying anything. Click here to view all of Alawar’s BrickBreaker-style games.

Installation

Once you download the Strike Ball 3 installer file, double-click it to install the full game. The game installed on my PC very quickly, and in just a few seconds it was ready to try out. Happily, the installation process does not require a restart of your computer.

When you open the game, it will take a few seconds to load up, and then you are presented with a menu. You can just click Start Game to get going. By default the game will launch in full-screen mode; if that bothers you, you can change this setting by visiting the Options menu first.

Gameplay

Once you begin your game, you get to choose your paddle color: Blue, Red or Green. This is purely aesthetic and doesn’t have any impact on the gameplay that I could tell. Second, you choose your difficulty level: Normal or High. I found both difficulty levels to be relatively easy.

Level 1 gives you a good feel for the game. You’ll quickly zoom in on the board and find yourself looking at a complex 3D scene. You’ll see a structure in the center of the board constructed of red and gray bricks, as well as trees, grass, and even a few mushrooms scattered about. Looking closer, you’ll see a train with a locomotive and six cars circling the structure. It’s quite a snazzy graphical display, especially if your comparison point is BrickBreaker on your BlackBerry.

You can use either the the mouse or the keyboard to control your paddle. I found the keyboard method wasn’t very smooth, so I just used the mouse. This worked well.

Click the mouse to launch the ball, and soon you’ll be breaking everything in sight. On the first level, you can break the bricks, trees, the train — everything. Many objects are destroyed on the first hit, while others take a few hits. Certain items, like the train, can only be destroyed if you pick up some of the many power-ups that fall during the game.

Speaking of power-ups, Strike Ball 3 offers a dizzying assortment of them: machine guns, heavy cannons, rocket launchers, an “orbital strike” that destroys things from above, special shields, multi-ball, an energy blast, and much more. There are also several power-downs that make your life difficult, such as the highly annoying “crazy ball” that spins around wildly. As you advance to higher levels in the game, you can purchase upgrades to each weapon. These upgrades either increase the destructive effects of power-ups or minimize the negative effects of power-downs.

If there’s a downside to Strike Ball 3, it’s that there’s not much nuance to it. There’s so much action in the game that it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of it all. You are firing away with different guns, helicopters are flying overhead and dropping power-ups onto the board, towers are collapsing, little creatures are walking around, and more. Furthermore, the game is relatively easy. I was rarely worried about running out of lives. Strike Ball 3 basically feels like a Hollywood summer blockbuster: lots of fun, action, and explosions, but not too challenging.

Overall, I think Strike Ball 3 is a fun game and I recommend it. It offers a free trial, so there’s really no downside to trying it out. I hope you enjoy it!

Click here to download the free trial or purchase the game.

Buying the Game

If you decide to buy the game, you simply visit Alawar’s Website and then click on BUY IT NOW. Within the game itself there’s also a “Buy Full Version Now” button that will take you to the correct Web page to purchase the game. I found the checkout process to be smooth and easy.

Once you complete the checkout process, Alawar will email you a registration key that unlocks the full game. This process is pretty self-explanatory, but if you run into any trouble, Alawar’s Website has complete instructions on how to enter the registration key into the game.

About this Review

I decided to recommend Strike Ball 3 because I enjoy the game and I think BrickBreaker fans will like it. I joined Alawar’s affiliate program, which means if you end up liking the game and buying it through the links on this site, I might make a buck or two. Sweet! You’ll pay the same price for the game regardless of whether you click through from this page or visit the Alawar site directly. Thanks