by: John Olin

January 31, 2006

The first thing I must get out of the way about this game is no, it isn’t Super Monkey Ball with no monkey. Those of you who are fortunate be a Mac user may have some sort of version of this game already, and those of you who don’t, I will explain the basics quickly. Unlike SMB, where you control the tilt of the level, this game you simply control the ball, as well as make it jump, or use power-ups that help you advance. Like Super Monkey Ball however, in the Single Player game, you will always have a main goal to get to, with obstacles in the way. Sometimes you will have to collect a certain amount of gems to further yourself as well. Going further, you can even battle it out with numerous people online.

As you traverse through the sixty single player levels, you will start out on a very gradual learning curve that explains the basic of the game. Along the way you will get power-ups that let you jump higher, let you roll faster, do blasts that help you jump higher or get more speed, and even get a power-up that turns you into a giant ball. The game can easily be beaten in about six hours or less depending on how easy it is for you to get the hang of it. Many obstacles have ice that can be quite bothersome, and others have moving or disappearing platforms giving plenty of challenge. Strangely, it doesn’t seem like the difficulty is completely balanced right as you may come to a level that you just can’t seem to do, but then come to the next level after finally beating it, and it is a breeze. Another interesting aspect of the game is you can control gravity in some stages, creating new puzzle elements, and flipping the entire stage so you may roll on previously unreachable areas. Another thing is that the levels become extremely hard when in advanced. Beginner is extremely easy, intermediate has a few challenging levels here and there, but advanced can be a pain. All the levels are open at the beginning, and you get achievement awards for beating each set, and beating each set under a certain time as well.

The great thing about the game is it has an interesting sense of depth that you might not have seen unless you look at the Xbox 360 Achievements. Besides the afore mentioned achievements there are achievements for finding little nifty easter eggs throughout the game as well. This actually adds a great deal of replay to the game, although the easter eggs themselves do nothing but unlock the achievements. There are also plenty of achievements for multiplayer, which those are a bit more difficult to get than the single player. The game is very accessible though, and I was able to get seven of the twenty total achievements in under seven hours of play time, going between single player and multiplayer. Try doing that with any other Xbox Live Arcade title and you will find yourself getting frustrated and letting it get buried in your demos of other Arcade games. Even more interesting is actually trying to top the game’s top scores, and thanks to a great sense of community on Xbox Live, and a nice little cult-following of the title you can trade secrets back and forth. The first level specifically is easy, and seems like the fastest you can beat it is 15 seconds, yet if you look on the leaderboard there are people beating it in about 5 seconds! You quickly figure out how much depth is in these simple levels and find out how to get to five seconds yourself. Little things like this also help increase the replay value of the game.

Xbox Live play allows you to challenge up seven others at a time. The thing about it is, is you either love it or hate it. The multiplayer can be fun at times, but some of the levels, such as the small, island like level that has a Mega-Marble (the power-up that turns your marble huge), is like a King of the Hill/ Juggernaut type game, accept it is much harder. If the Mega-Marble just barely touches you, you could go flying, even if you use a blast to hit them in many cases. As you play multiplayer, you push other players out of the way, racing for gems to collect, gathering up points. The most interesting of the multiplayer levels actually allows you to control gravity while looking for gems, so you may see other marbles riding sideways on the wall, while you are on another side. It sounds simple, and it is, but it is also extremely entertaining.

Visually the game is very crisp, clean, and quite frankly the best-looking Live Arcade title we have seen yet. The tiles in the levels have a nice shine to them, with great weight around the edges, and while some levels can look plain, are nicely colored. To add some variety to the game you can change the look of your marble to a variety of designs such as tie-died, chrome, a globe, smiley face and more. The sound is unsurprisingly pretty basic. You will have the same techno song playing over and over again, but luckily that is what custom soundtracks are for. The game’s very technological and space age sounds for the swoops, pops, and explosions of the ball is pretty nice though.

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Marble Blast Ultra doesn’t have the challenge or elegant simplicity of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, yet it is easy enough to get into, play, and has enough to do that everyone can actually enjoy it rather than get their butt handed to them. At 800 Points ($10) it may seem like a steep price, but you will find yourself playing it for quite a few hours when you first purchase it, and playing it quite a bit in the future as well. If you haven’t bought an Xbox Live Arcade title yet, do yourself a favor and download this one

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