A Look at An Arcade Classic

Name of the game is Marble Madness for the NES by Milton Bradley Copyright Tengen 1984.
Some of you might be like never heard of it, or probably played it and thought it really stunk.
Anyway Marble Madness rekindled the old flame of playing this game on the computer. I honestly did not know that it made a release to the console back in the day. The whole point of the game is to guide your marble to the finish line in a set of six races, where the sixth is the ULTIMATE RACE.

Marble Madness gives two options when starting the game for each player to choose. there are 90 Degree angles and there are 45 degree angles to choose from. If you are experienced with playing Q*bert the 45 degree choice is going to be quite obvious. The 90 degree angle is a bit rough and adds to the difficulty.

The game’s level of difficulty ranges from easy to extreme from each level by telling you in the beginning when its adding time to your remaining amount. The games order of difficulty is, PRACTICE, BEGINNER, INTERMEDIATE, AERIAL, SILLY, and finally the ULTIMATE. Each race is pretty straight forward, multiple paths to choose, and many obstacles. Some of the physics is messed up within the game that is quite noticeable like the SILLY race at the end of the race you have to go down a small slope, but if your not going fast enough you are going to get stuck.

The enemies in this game are a real killer. There are black marbles that try to kill you, some kind of acid that melts your marble, and some kind of slinky guy that eats you. In this same area comes in the abnormalities. Slightly fall and the marble gets a bit dizzy, fall a great distance and hit the ground the marble will crack/die. Fall into a hole the marble will just reappear right before you fell.

The deaths in the game really costs a lot of time and it really depends on the type of death. There are two types! There is the quick death where you fall off screen, become lunch, or melt. Then there is the slow painful death that kills the time which you fall and crack, shatter, and then get swept up in a pan. The slow death is a pain and can’t be avoided really on the last couple of races.
Keep on your toes!

music is kinda cheap but it delivers to the mood. Graphics wise its pretty neat to see on the NES and the look of all the races gives the 3D feel to it but the game has no depth with the layout >_<.

For first timers this game will really piss you off. The game shows no mercy to anyone, but time is a bit generous if it wants to be. The game starts with an initial 60 seconds for the practice run, but the time does not carry over. Even if the first race is smoked right on by the second race will still give out 65 seconds regardless. Time adds on after every completed race afterwards at the start of the next race. Randomly a wand will come out and add an extra 10 seconds so it will help out with getting a high score.

To anyone this game gives out a high challenge for experienced play and beginning play. With that said I close by saying that this game is a gem for those that enjoy the arcade feel to a home console and if it ever comes out on the Wii VC pick it up. For those retro collectors this is a definite add to any collection.

On a side note this game can be found on two systems. One system is the NES and the other system is the Sega Genesis.