Marble Madness

An old favorite in the arcades, Marble Madness has made a very smooth transition onto the NES. Each stage challenges you to navigate a marble through a maze of platforms, ramps, bridges, tubes, and obstacles. It requires a great deal of finesse to traverse the narrow bridges, and a timer keeps the tension high. The psuedo-3D stages feature numerous interesting gadgets like catapults and vacuums that help or hinder your progress. The graphics are easy on the eyes, and your large marble is no problem to control. Thanks to its relatively short stages, Marble Madness has that "just one more time" quality that keeps you coming back for more. Also included is a terrific head-to-head two-player mode which adds a whole new dimension to the game. And be sure to turn up the volume, because the music is absolutely incredible.

More than just a trip down memory lane, Marble Madness is as fresh today as it's always been - just like those Hovis ads. Buy Marble Madness and enjoy some fine gameplay and a fair few nights burning the midnight oil in a wonderful, wacky world full of things which might just drive you round the twist...

Electronic Arts (who converted the game from Atari's coin-op) set up shop in their own right on this side of the Atlantic, having decided that the time was right to unleash their current range of American titles onto the Britisch public. Among their first batch of releases is another version of Marble Madness, this time for the IBM PC - and it is arguably the most playable version yet.

Diese Spielidee ist Zeit-resistent: Dank der technisch gelungenen Umsetzung dürfen sich nun auch NES-Besitzer an Marble Madness in seiner vollen Pracht erfreuen. Die Musikbegleitung geriet erwartungsgemäß etwas düdlig, stört aber nicht weiter. Wichtig sind vor allem Steuerung und Grafik; die Entwickler-Crew von Rare hat hier zum Glück nicht gepatzt und selbst den hektisch-spaßigen Zwei-Spieler-Modus in die NES-Version gerettet. Den einzigen Haken des Vorbildes jedoch leider auch: Sechs Levels sind für einen Geschicklichkeitsfan nicht allzu viel. Dafür frustriert der Schwierigkeitsgrad der letzten Marble-Welt dann selbst den absoluten Kenner.

All things considered, Marble Madness serves as an enjoyable visit to the video game hall of fame. This version is no better or worse than all of the other ports I've seen, but at least you get to take it on the road with you. While it would have been nice to see some more effort put into the port, Marble Madness is indicative of a lot of old portable games that try to recreate some sort of arcade experience. Good, but certainly not great.

Spielerisch hält sich das Modul eng ans Original, auch wenn es sich die Kugel lange nicht so gut steuern läßt. Keine überragende Umsetzung, die NES-Version ist besser. Leider blieb's bei den wenigen sechs Strecken.

It may sound like an easy task, but in this game danger really does lurk around every corner. You must find you way around various obstacles and enemies in order to reach your goal. And don't forget...the clock is always running. So hurry or it could be too late.

If you have another person to play with, then this game is swell, otherwise expect a game that you are going to get tired of relatively quickly.

Die Master System-Version krankt hauptsächlich an den Details, die wir schon beim Game Gear zu bemängeln hatten: Die sechs Level sind zu schnell durchgespielt und dann sucht man vergeblich nach etwas Neuem. Zudem ist die Joypad-Steuerung ein ziemlich zähes Unterfangen mit Glücksspiel-Charakter.

Although the few minutes you play Marble Madness are enjoyable, the fun wears out due to the small amount of content that is repeated all the time. You can buy a bottle of soda for the same price, and just like it, the taste is best when first opened with the most carbonic acid. But once the bottle is emptied quickly, there is not much more to do than put it away or recycle it for more soda later. Marble Madness might be worth the few minutes of fun for a buck or two, just don't expect an extraordinary, lengthy Mega Drive experience.