Marble Madness

[Melf]

Normally, you'd think that rolling a shiny metal ball around a stage without letting it fall would make for a great game. The original Marble Madness was wonderful, with its excellent trackball controller and more recently, Marble Blast Ultra on Xbox Live Arcade showed that such a game could work with a controller. But that was long after analog sticks became the norm, and poor Genesis gamers had to suffer with playing on a totally unsatisfactory D-pad. The Genesis port of Marble Madness suffered because of it, among other things, and the resulting effort was poor enough for even creator Mark Cerny to disown it! Read the full review for all the rolling details.

[The Sports Guy]

Good Game, eh!

Its good, but I agree with the points in this review. Its not worth anything, its only fun for maybe two minutes in and then it slowly gets stale. At least it is close to arcade perfect and has some skill to it. Too bad it didnt have anything extra. And it hurt your fingers.

Basically.

[Dave White]

Marble Madness is a great game. The music in this version ruins the game making it completely non playable. How any game music composer could be proud of random crap sounds and call it music is beyond horrible. Steve Hayes the so called composer is now a pan handler.

[Benjamin]

It's a harsh review, but I can't say I disagree with it. Just kinda sad given that it really is a classic, and the Genesis game with Atari trackball is a great version of Marble Madness for the time. To be fair, Cerny didn't bash the game in his interview exactly... just questioned its worth as a console game. For a fan, I could easily see a person buying it for $30 (near positive it was a budget game) just to save on quarters at the time, but there's no good reason to play this over superior modern ports that better implement that track ball control scheme.

[Zebbe]

Marble Madness is a great game. The music in this version ruins the game making it completely non playable. How any game music composer could be proud of random crap sounds and call it music is beyond horrible. Steve Hayes the so called composer is now a pan handler.

That sit-com parody video you and Joe did was hilarious. I'm honoured to have you write in my review thread. I wouldn't be if Joe wrote here though. He writes everywhere on Sega-16 Forums anyway .

[Mr Smith]

I was amazed by how short the game is. With something as basic as this I would have expected as many levels as there are in Sonic 1 & Knuckles. I think the review has it spot on.

[megabomberman]

This game isn't that bad as long as you go in with very low expectations. After one sees it for what it truly is it isn't a killer to have in the collection, and is always good for a quick blast with someone else..

Yes the graphics suck but for this game it doesn't matter
Yes the music sucks but its funny
Yes the game is short but you'd want to burn it if it went on for any longer

A truly unique experience I'd say
Or like drinking a bottle of Coke if you're Zebbe

[Zebbe]

I don't drink Coke, I drink Pommac .

[vintagegamecrazy]

A pretty good review, I may have given it a 5 or so becuase the control doesn't seem to work on this port. I love the Nes one though and I managed to finish it once.

[CMA Death Adder]

A great game... but not on the Genesis: The sound was programmed not only to be bland, but also to be needlessly blaringly loud which destroyed any possibility of it being salvaged. I have no issue with the graphics, as they're passable enough, but the control (or lack thereof) is too painful to bother trying to master.

At least, it's still a roaring good time to knock that damned steel marble over the edge. How I despise that steel marble.

[Dave White]

That sit-com parody video you and Joe did was hilarious. I'm honoured to have you write in my review thread. I wouldn't be if Joe wrote here though. He writes everywhere on Sega-16 Forums anyway .

Thanks Zebbe. Awe yes the sit-com parody. One of our finer moments in video history. Joe does know his way around a MAC editing suite.

[CRV]

Turns out the Japanese version released by Tengen is completely different from the one released in the West by EA. It looks and sounds more like the arcade version. Found a video comparing the two on Nico Nico Douga (Japanese video sharing site) and put it up on YouTube for those of you who aren't registered to Nico Nico.



Seems nobody knows about this version. Hasn't even been dumped, apparently.

[Zebbe]

It was released two years later. But the credits shown at the end are the exact same as the western version, even though the sound is way better in the JP version.

[CRV]

It was released two years later. But the credits shown at the end are the exact same as the western version, even though the sound is way better in the JP version.

I just cheated through the EA version. I didn't see any credits at the end.

[Benjamin]

Are the graphics and music really better? Looks and sounds the same to me. I wouldn't judge quality based on a YouTube clip comparison, but I know I'm hearing the same songs in that Japanese clip and the domestic version of the game.