Forty-five degrees?
Ninety? What's the difference?
Controller nightmare!
Additional Comments:
For the record, no, this was not one of the "select" titles I've been putting around with for the past few months. Honestly, that'd be right sad; then again, given the madness of Marble Madness...maybe not. End game disappearing block bridge... Holy cow! Does the madness ever end!?
Marble Madness was another one of those game I often picked up as a rental when I was young, as I thoroughly enjoyed the premise, however failed to make any decent headway in the game. Maybe because I only had a rare weekend to give it my best, only to be daunted by the frustrating cohesion, or lack thereof, between an isometric view and an x/y axis joypad. Playing the game now, I found 90° instantly comfortable, or at least the more tolerable of the two. I wouldn't exactly term it "comfortable" since my left hand began to suffer from some serious carpal tunnel like symptoms - something of which I've rarely, if ever, experienced in any other game. Maybe some slight cramping over extended play sessions, but the severity of which I was creaming the diagonal axes trying to maneuver a solitary marble over single width zigzags was pure torture.
I don't remember suffering that much when I was a kid. Reasonable explanation would simply be: I was a kid, but I vaguely remember preferring the 45° setup and holding the controller at an angle back then as well. Maybe that's why I sucked so bad at the game back in the day. Using 45° is a mindfuck. Trying to constantly remember if down is indicative of down or left, or is it right, is a total nightmare. I jumped right into 90° this time around and played it through to the end before I tried to give 45° a solid effort again. Nope. Forget it. My solid effort lasted all of a single stage. I'll take shooting nerve pain and a more sensible controller layout, thank you.
Of course, any chiding of the controls must be accompanied by a proper caveat. After all, Rare did the best they could considering the game is meant to be played with a trackball. Credit must be given for at least offering a 45° option to counter the stages' isometric builds. Besides, Rare did a, pardon the pun, rare thing with Marble Madness. They successfully made a brilliant NES port of an arcade game, even if the arcade game slightly predates the system entirely so you have to wonder if praise is really warranted. With a five year time span, you would think a flawless port should exist without question. I don't know, but thankfully, trackball or not, this one is damn near flawless.
Despite any grumbles I may have regarding the controls, or the fact that long ago, I just sucked at this game, I still love this game. Hell, I loved this game as a kid, even if I never made it past the fourth stage, and that was when I was lucky enough to even make it to the fourth stage. There's something wholly fascinating about Marble Madness. It's almost like there's a kinship with miniature golf, and in many respects, reminds me of another game I loved playing a few short years later on the Apple IIGS: Will Harvey's Zany Golf. These are two classic games where the main mechanic is moving a ball around wildly absurd layouts, be it Marble Madness's nod to M.C. Escher or Zany Golf's anything goes motif. Except, unlike a presumed mini-golf emulation, Marble Madness allows for total control of the ball throughout the entire stage.
I'd love to see a proper update to this game. I know there are a number of games in the marble genre that are fairly recent; most come off as shovelware titles and lack that endearing impact that the original marble contraption game had. Plus, most of the one's I've come across seem to take a smidgen of inspiration from Super Monkey Ball. While I understand it's a fantastic series, I've yet to play it, but I've watched enough footage of the games to notice a considerable gap in how the games are approached and for me it feels...off. Looks fun, but feels off. At least nothing out there today is attempting to emulate the ZX Specturm port of Marble Madness. *shudders*
Don't have much else to say. It's a short game, tough as nails insomuch that you're fighting the controls more than anything, and a fantastic reminder of sometimes the simplest games can be the most entertaining. It's not a game for everyone, but for anyone who has even the vaguest interest in puzzle games, though I certainly wouldn't label it as such, it's a highly recommended play. And to cap it off, it comes with a fantastic soundtrack; again, surprisingly faithful to the arcade original, though in my opinion this particular version is the best of the whole bunch. To be fair, I've only heard snippets from the other ports, mostly of the catchy Beginner Race, although, there's something wholly intriguing about the NES version of Practice Race. Something about it just pops that doesn't come across in any of the other versions and it's a tune that's stood the test of time, at least for me, despite its almost mind numbing simplicity.
A quick aside: I do wish there was a mode that allowed you to run the stages without a timer. Consider it an easy mode v. hard mode with timer. Never mind that I personally find most of the difficulty in the controls, but I can't help but feel the game is bloated with classic early video game era artificial difficulty via an unnecessary timer. Some may consider this a baseless gripe - me simply whinging that the game is too hard. On the contrary, I think the game can easily survive on the difficulty offered in the levels themselves. The stupid disappearing bridges at the end of the Ultimate Race are proof enough. But then again, the game is kind enough to start you back at the point of impact should you explode your marble. Without a timer, a lives system would perhaps need to be questioned though, which would only reinforce the idea of artificial difficulty concepts, so...I don't know. Perhaps a timer is the best way to handle the situation without allowing the game to be too easy. But would it be too easy? Eh...maybe.
Rating: 4 nihilistic black marbles with a death wish out of 5*
*And over the edge he goes...
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