As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #35, April 2007.

Over the years there have been a few games that don't fit into a preexisting genre.  This is either because they are made up of various types of gameplay or they involve a new form all together.  Marble Madness is the latter.  Released in 1984 and designed by future industry legend Mark Cerny, Marble Madness carved out a niche for itself in the hearts of arcade patrons with its unique concept.  Via a trackball, the player controls the movement of a marble as it sails through a series of labyrinths, each more treacherous than the last.  Up to two players may play at the same time, racing their marbles to the finish of each stage before time runs out.  Although there are a few enemies that aim to stall progress of your marble, the courses themselves are the real challenge.  They feature increasingly complex pathways and mechanisms that must be successfully navigated and exploited to reach the finish on time.  Not the longest or deepest game by any means but it sure is fun and frustrating at the same time - the perfect balance.  Five years after rolling into the arcade, Marble Madness crashed into living rooms when Rare ported it onto the NES.

While the move onto the NES seems like a logical one in terms of popularity, it is also met with uncertainty.  After all, a core part of the Marble Madness experience was the use of a trackball for control.  Obviously the directional pad on the NES controller is a poor substitute for the arcade control surface, so Rare did the best that they could.  At the start of the game the player is asked to select the control method they are most comfortable with.  90 degree mode is the standard, the controller is held in the usual way - up is up, down is down, and so forth.  45 degree mode requires the controller to be turned 1/8th clockwise, using the directions on the directional pad as diagonals - up is up-right, down is down-left, and so forth.  Since the labyrinths are drawn from an isometric perspective this works out well, however the gameplay is exactly the same regardless of the control mode used.  Another challenge of replicating the trackball control is ball acceleration.  The faster one would roll the trackball, the faster their marble would roll.  This is critical for getting up hills, over bumps, and around obstacles contained in the game.  Pressing the A Button on the NES control pad gives your ball a little push of acceleration, replicating ball acceleration from the arcade as well as possible.  Amazingly, good control can be obtained using the NES controller with a bit of practice.  Rare did an excellent job at getting over this ultimate hurdle and made a trackball game playable with a digital directional pad.

Rare did an equally excellent job at recreating the look and feel of the original stages.  They're nowhere as cleanly detailed as they were in the arcade but for the NES hardware things look very accurate - each stage is recreated near perfectly with the same paths and perils.  Enemies look and behave the same, as do the traps and mechanisms.  While it's all there, it does play just a hair slower than it did in the arcade but this doesn't detract from the overall experience one bit.  Audio is impressive as the graphics and control.  This is important as Marble Madness is well known for its unique soundtrack and it was actually the first video game with stereo sound.  Of course the NES hardware isn't up to reproducing the music perfectly but it does a fine job none the less.  Sound effects aren't as well done but considering the high marks the game gets in every other category it is quite excusable.

Marble Madness on the NES is as close to the arcade as you could ever possibly expect to get on the hardware.  Rare were indeed masters of the isometric perspective on the NES with other hit games such as the Pro-Am series, Battletoads, and Snake Rattle And Roll which all used similar graphic styles.  While they would go on to greater success after the eight bit age, this era is still my favorite in their history.  Anyone looking for a quality home version of this arcade masterpiece needs look no further.  Even nicer is the fact that the game is dirt common and can be had for just a couple bucks.  Rare did a top notch job start to finish and NES owners should take a look at the work they did here, it really is quite impressive.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

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