Marble Blast Mobile – Released! (Slightly positive, slightly ranting)
admin | May 17, 2009Hey everyone,
If you haven’t heard the news yet, Marble Blast Mobile has been released (as of May 14th). I bought it as soon as I woke up on Friday and have been practicing since 
Anyways, the game itself is a lot different than the other versions of the game (Gold, Platinum, Ultra, and Online) in terms of feel and movement. Although the controls are highly customizable, all in all I think Luma Arcade could have done a slightly better job in making the game easier to play. As it is, most of the levels are quite difficult due to the controls, and some are seriously out of place!
Anyways, the “gold time” has been replaced with three separate achievements: bronze, silver, and gold medal. Most of these are pretty well placed, and took me quite a while to achieve (I haven’t even beaten all the levels yet!).
Right now, there is only local wifi multiplayer, but I have been told that it is going global next update: you will be able to play people across the world over your internet connection. That’s certainly a plus.
The app itself looks very clean and has intuitive menus, although some of the buttons are just wack (the “PLAY /////////////////” button, for example).
Right now, I think the game is a little too difficult for the average player. It could just take a little getting used to, but most apps on the app store are meant to provide short, fun gaming – not necessarily something you have to work and work on just to be able to unlock all the levels. The game gets very frustrating at times.
Diagonal movement is really not possible through the controls, although I don’t think it would be something I would utilize anyways: I have enough trouble staying on the maps just moving forwards!
The levels are a mix of Marble Blast Ultra/Online and Gold levels, although many of them have changes to them, such as Bowl’s added challenges, and Core’s stripped-down map for more simplicity.
The level ordering is really misplaced, with very difficult levels such as Epicenter and some parts of Grand Finale (Tornado) placed earlier than simple levels like Sprawl and Thrill Ride.
Anyways, it is a decent app right now, obviously it has a lot to be worked on, but for the $5 it’s worth it. Go get it on the app store!
- Perishingflames
Nice, concise review. I know the developers are working on updating the game and eventually adding online multiplayer (rather than just local wifi).
By the way, check out @MarbleBlast on twitter. There’s hint of an upcoming giveaway: http://twitter.com/MarbleBlast/status/1791866592
Thank you. I know some of my control ranting is less applicable now than it was than I wrote this, considering some friends I showed the game to had no problem grasping it.
Anyways, yes- I’m following you, and I have seen that message spammed all over the internet, lol.
Hey, just saw this. At first I actually had worse impressions than you. I definitely agree with you when you said this game is much different “in terms of feel.” It seems like the physics are entirely different. Do you ever get the feeling that there’s a brake on when you’re in neutral position? It’s so hard to tell because the whole concept of acceleration is different. On the computer, you can only be going all out or not going at all, but with the iPod, you can be accelerating at any pace in between. It completely throws me off. And I wish they would’ve focused more on actually optimizing the framerate and such. At times the classic control style can be literally impossible to use, because it takes well over a second to even respond to your fingers. I really thing they shouldn’t have made it look like MBU just for show. As I read in the article, the hardware and software itself is just incapable of what they REALLY wanted to achieve, and I think their workarounds didn’t really work the greatest. I would much rather have a MBG-like, smoother game than a MBU-wannabe that plays like crap. But sadly good graphics is probably what the general public would demand first (and then smoothness AFTER they’ve all bought it).
Seems I’ve ranted too, but I really wanted to tell that to someone who owns the game too.
Pretty nice game, I searching it in app store!