Customer Reviews

Marble Madness/Klax

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the worst port of Marble Madness I have ever played. It is impossible to control the little marble. It moves sluggishly, and unexpectedly wanders off of the platforms at unexpected times. Collisions with enemies or a wall will often cause unexpected results, and certain parts of the game are just plain broken. Also, some obstacles and traps have been changed (to save time for the programmers?)

I have played Marble Madness in almost every edition for many different consoles. The older version for the BnW Gameboy is vastly superior, which is really sad. Go out and find an old Sega GameGear and a copy of the game for that system if you want portable color Marble Madness fun.

The version of Klax which is offered here is passable. On the older GBA it is very hard to tell the difference between the colors, but the game is true to the arcade classic (unlike Marble Madness, urgg!!). On newer GBA SP systems, or the DS, Klax looks great, and it is really a fun game!

It's too bad Klax got mixed up wih this inferior attempt at Marble Madness.

I bought this game recently thinking I would get two great games in one cartridge. I found out later you get only three of the six levels in marble madness and if that wasn't messed up enough I also noticed some changes in this half ***** version of the game:
Level 2 Black steele marble is replaced by a marble muncher
Level 3 There are no waves leaving only a flat green ground
At least klax is the complete game so if you still want this cartridge buy it for klax only NOT marble madness. If you still want the feel of marble madness buy the game boy color game instead. For some people it may not be perfect but, I've been playing this game and, it is marble madness with all six levels and every obstacle and enemy exactly as I remembered it in the NES version except a little harder. In conclusion, I think that any future classic game compilations should not be left up to DSI games because they will only cut corners and make it a complete disaster to gamers all around the world.

Anyone who played video games regularly throughout the 80's probably had some affinity for a little gem of a game called Marble Madness. Rolling your way through 6 stages of gradually increasing complexity and difficulty required a lot of practice, a lot of patience, and a little bit of luck. If you were good enough to get to the Silly Race (level 5), it was always a pleasure to take revenge on the miniature versions of the creatures that tormented you throughout the previous levels as you squash them flat AND had earned valuable seconds for your timer in the process.

Likewise, people fondly remember Klax, a block dropping puzzle game which contains a similar "3-in-a-row" scoring system to Sega's Columns, but manages to maintain a completely unique system for managing and actually dropping the blocks. Klax won all sorts of awards for its ingenuity and design, and it received official ports to practically every system under the sun - including, believe it or not, the Atari 2600 (which was over 20 years old by the time Klax was released).

In 2005, DSI Games licensed both titles from Midway and enlisted the aid of developer Frame Studios to produce a compilation cartridge featuring both these games for the Game Boy Advance. How did they turn out?

Klax looks pretty good on the small screen, it controls just as good as it ever has, and the sounds are crisp and pleasant. The "clacking" sound (which is the game's namesake) as the endless onslaught of tiles lumber down the treadmill has always been a personal favorite of mine. This port of Klax also retains the chuckle-inducing "It is the nineties and there is time for... KLAX" in the attract mode, which never seems to get old.

One interesting feature that I never knew about the game before I played this port of it is that you have the option to throw tiles back on to the treadmill if you can't use them right away and you don't want to hold them or drop them into the play area. Of course doing this means you have more tiles coming from the treadmill than usual, but it adds a whole new element of depth to the game that I had not previously been aware of.

After playing with this new knowledge, I am finally forced to admit that even though the nineties are over... there is STILL time for Klax.

Marble Madness, on the other hand, is a botched job like no other. It starts out decent enough, with the time being added to the game clock in five second increments before you start out on the Practice Race. Then, all of a sudden, the game begins and it doesn't control nearly as well as it should. You're either moving far too slow to get anywhere, or far too fast to get around corners without falling off, and there isn't really any middle ground. The music and sound effects also sounds significantly downsampled and grainier than any of the other ports I've played of it.

The real kicker is when you finish the Intermediate Race (Level 3). You are treated to a "GAME OVER" message and then immediately kicked out to the title screen.

What happened to the final three stages which REALLY put your skills to the test?

They're simply not there.

Marble Madness had a great NES and Genesis port, as well as a port on each of the previous Game Boy iterations (both the original and the Game Boy Color), and all of these had all six levels included. Why does the Game Boy Advance, which is technically superior to any of these systems, get stiffed with only half the game? To add insult to injury, the "wave carpet" obstacle at the last part the Intermediate Race is now just a "flat carpet with no waves ever, and we mean EVER." Worse yet, the box art has a screenshot of the Silly Race behind the logo. Yes, the Silly Race that is in every other version of Marble Madness - except this half-baked half-port.

As it stands, this version of Marble Madness can easily be completed in well under two minutes from the time you press start to the time you're back at the title screen, and that's not an exaggeration. I timed myself at in 1 minute 51 seconds, and that includes a lot of falling off the edge.

Sometimes you just have to buy games like these to hear if the terrible things you read in the reviews are true... well, I did, and they are true. This "demo sold as an actual game" version of Marble Madness is an embarrassment to everyone involved.

On the other hand, with the broken "wave carpet" on Stage 3, I can only imagine how broken the other obstacles in the game would have been if they had managed to finish porting it. Perhaps they'd put in hammers that don't actually do any hammering, or find a way to work in vacuums that only suck metaphorically because they don't suck literally. Still, if they couldn't be bothered to complete Marble Madness, they should have simply not included it. It's a disservice to gamers everywhere to sell the game as "Marble Madness / Klax" when half of Marble Madness is nowhere to be found. I'm calling this version "Mar Madn" from now on.

I give this game 1 star out of principle (I would have given it zero if I could), despite the fact that Klax plays well, simply because it's inexcusable for DSI Games to have shipped an incomplete product like this.

Marble Madness=Boring Hourse of 'entertainment'

Marble Madness is a game that is supposivley to be fun. You roll a marble around, avoid obstacles and get a high score. Thats all there is too it. The quality of the game is terrible. It is just TERRIBLE! There are no bright colors in the game (which would have definitley made a difference) The colors are just dull and have a gray tint in them. Nothing cheerful to make you feel good. The contols are VERY hard to master and use. I really wouldn't have minded Marble Madness as much (I could give it two stars) if there was a SAVE BUTTON or atleast when you defeat a level you can go o it again without doing all the previous levels. Another complaint, the levels are TOO HARD! Too many unexpected falls, barely any insturctions on how to control the marble and what instructions there are is VERY hard to read. I really expected this game to be like Marble Blast from GarageGames (Windows and Mac) but by all means... this is MILLIONS times worse! I plan to trade it in and get some credit at our local gaming store but I wouldn't be that surprised if they only gave me a penny of credit.

The only other part of the game I'm not too upset about is the price. $14.99 is not that bad. I personally think it should be a $1 game but, $14.99 is better than $19.99-$32.99 (price range of regular GBA games.

Thats all I have to say about the game, please consider my opinion for your decision to buy the game or not. I say not more but for you to be able be happy with your choice (to buy or not to buy) whichever you choose.