Marble Madness/Klax

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 muncherLevel 3 There are no waves leaving only a flat green groundAt 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.

This is a compilation of two very popular late twentieth century arcade games: Marble Madness and Klax. As you may have heard, Marble Madness is a poor and incomplete version. So to put it simply, if you are playing a Game Boy Advance that also plays original and GBC games, you would be doing yourself a favor to get one of the two older versions of it. But if you're stuck with a DS/DS Lite/Game Boy Micro then you wouldn't have much of a choice. I personally consider this a "demo" cart of Marble Madness that teases a full GBA style game that was not released onto this platform. As for Klax however, I consider this one hard and rather incomplete/incongruent presentation wise. On most other versions of Klax, if you have more than one color tile on the paddle, you can press an alternative button "B" in the Game Boy/Game Boy Color versions, you can place another tile onto the board. In this one, that feature is not there--which makes it more difficult to play. What "B" does instead is what "Up" on the d-pad/joystick does on most other versions: Throws a particular tile back up for it to fall back down. "Up" on the other hand does nothing, and neither does "L" or "R" as far as I can tell. What stings the most is how the level instructions that were pulled from the original Arcade version tells you to press "Up" to throw the piece back. I can tell that the creators of this port were just trying to "preserve" accuracy from the original's presentation; however, this Klax game pretty much indicates that is openly inferior to the Arcade port, as it offers less--not to forget, this particular release is for 1-player only. Again with this game, if you can get something that also plays Game Boy Color games, then get the GBC version of this, as it's like the arcade version (only with more muffled and scratchy sounds), but with passwords, link play, hidden and extra modes, and museum like unlockables.If you ask me, get one of the old console versions of Marble Madness, or an Arcade perfect with or without a trackball, and if you want it portably, then also get the original Game Boy and/or the Game Boy Color version (which is like a more slippery version physic wise of the black and white Game Boy version, but features the hidden level that the original Game Boy one omits), and get one copy of the fun and challenging Game Boy Color version of Klax.All of that said, Marble Madness and Klax here have pretty decent sounds for a low budget seeming GBA game, and Gameplay wise, aside from the lacking features, of which I can't emphasize enough is not good, they are still playable enough if you know what you're getting into. I just wish they both lived up to be arcade perfects, or at least gave their potential players more of a reason to play those particular versions--yes changing up the text for the sake of catering to this particular release or somehow letting people know that they are playing a unique version of each game would indeed help this 2 game compilation release stand out in a good way.

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.