Marble Blast Ultra

"Yeah, that's right, I play with balls"

Marble Blast Ultra is one of the simplest, easiest, and best arcade games out for the Xbox 360. It combines easy, user-friendly controls with great gameplay, graphics, and sound. I recommend this game to everyone of all ages, in fact, my little (7-year-old) sister absolutely adores this game, as does my dad, as do I.

The gameplay in this game is simple. You control a marble, which (in the majority of the levels), you use to collect a varying amount of "gems" for headed to the exit point. Other levels only require you to get to the exit point, though for the most part, these are somewhat harder. There are 60 levels total, which are split into three difficulties (Easy, Intermediate, and Hard), each of which has 20 levels. There are different power-ups you can obtain that let you advance throughout the different levels, including "super jump," "super speed," "mega marble," and an assortment of others.

Each level has a varying "par-time" that you must beat. After beating the par time on every level on a certain difficulty, you get an extra achievement, in addition to the one you get for simply beating them all. Your time is tracked via a timer in the upper-part of your screen. One feature that would've been nice to have is the ability to customize your marbles. But all in all, the gameplay is extremely well put together.

The graphics in this game are simple, but good. This is the first arcade game to truly use 3D graphics, and it delivers quite well. Although it doesn't look quite "realistic", it's fairly obvious that that's not what the creators of the game set out to do, rather, to make a fun looking environment. On many of the levels, the sky is filled with different math symbols and equations. What these mean I have yet to find out, but they're still pretty cool to look at. To sum it up, the creators did what they set out to do with the graphics, with spectacular results.

The audio in this game isn't the best part of it, but it isn't the worst either. The music can get a little repetitive at times, as there isn't really any difference between levels. When you collect a power-up, a woman's voice names the power-up you collected. The *clack* of your marble hitting the tile floor (the main surface used through the game), adds an impressive touch, and is actually a bit fun to hear.

The controls in this game, like the gameplay, are simple but brilliant. Use the left thumbstick to control your marble, and the right thumbstick to change the camera view. The "A" button jumps, and the "RB" allows you to use a power blast, which takes you to even greater heights. The "RT" activates the power you currently have (assuming you have one). As I said, the controls are simple (these are the only ones you need to beat the game), but they work incredibly well, and it only took about 10 minutes to completely master them.

This game, unfortunately, doesn't have too high of a replayibility factor. The multiplayer is fun for a while, but slowly grows repetitive; due to the lack of any additional modes (the only one you have is trying to collect more gems than your opponents). The single player is fun, and takes about 2-3 hours to beat (trying to get the par time on several levels can take quite a few tries), but it could've been a whole lot bigger with minimal effort. I got about 5 hours out of this game total.

All in all, this is a game that could've been so much better with even a few weeks of extra time worked on it. A few more multiplayer modes and some other single player levels would have been nice, as would the ability to customize your *ahem* marbles. If you're looking to spend some time with a younger son or daughter, I highly recommend this game, due to the lack of violence or anything else that parents might find "objectionable." However, there are much better arcade games out there, though many are violent.

Gameplay - 8/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 7/10
Controls - 8/10
Replayibility - 7/10
Overall - 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/04/07

Game Release: Marble Blast Ultra (US, 01/26/06)