Tag: video-games

My Descent into Marble Madness (1991, 1999)

Brother, I have seen some shit.

There are a lot of folks who will tell you that a Marble Madness without a trackball is not worth playing. I disagree! Not enough to deny that the bigass spinny ball is obviously better, I’m not the kind of guy who buys Golden Tee home ports, but NES Marble Madness is a fine way to spend 5 minutes! One afternoon, and I honestly could not tell you why, I was struck with the urge to play some proto-Monkey Ball and popped the GBC game on.

I wish I’d waited until this project had fully burnt off my novelty synapses first.

Marble Madness GBC (1999)

Woah, what the fuck? Why is it like this? Home computer joysticky versions worked fine in the 80s, as did NES MM in ’89 despite the dpad. Why in the year of our lord 1999, when portable video gaming technology was advancing at an unprecedented rate, did Digital Eclipse release a version of a then-fifteen year old game that works this poorly?

GBC Marble Madness looks fine visually, but not to the point where it justifies this performance. This game chugs like a frat pledge that just lost his girlfriend and controls like a frat pledge that just got a new one. I thought things might be salvageable until level 3, then the faux 3D fully kicked in and my hopes were kicked in the marbles. I scooted the ball behind a wall and the game panicked like an anxious baby in a high stakes game of peekaboo, sprites flickering and frames dropping to single digits as it desperately tried to show me that there was in fact a marble on screen somewhere, somehow. It’s also a much twitchier game than other versions I’ve played, with the Marble having basically no weight, meaning you can fly off the stage far more easily and in sections that wouldn’t normally present a problem.

If the only issues were iffy framerates and a subpar control scheme I’d still give this a begrudging pass based entirely on my preexisting biases, but no, it gets worse! The respawns are scuffed. I had several occasions where I made an oopsie and the game just dropped me into the same pit a few more times for good measure before finally allowing me to recover. If you know anything about Marble Madness, you know that means the run is basically over! You need to finish stages with as much time as possible and in better versions of the game there’s enough margin for error, but in this port? Nah. I never saw any of the magic wand time extensions in this version either, which is a bonkers omission.

Getting through this was like pulling teeth: painful, repetitive, but not exactly the lengthiest torture. The last level is more a timer check and test of patience than anything else, and I suspect my first trip there was literally impossible, which isn’t great! Again though, this game takes 5 minutes to beat, retries are speedbumps. Eventually I ascended to top of the High Rollers board and switched the game off. I do not intend to defend my title.

1.5/5

—
I could have left it there. That should have been enough. Instead, this is where things went off the track. Out of truly morbid curiosity I figured hey, why not try the even older version while this one’s fresh in my mind and thumbs? The version without color from eight years prior! Maybe it runs a bit better, somehow? Maybe it isn’t missing entire gameplay elements? Maybe it won’t be the single worst game I’ve played for the website thus far?
—

Marble Madness GB (1991)

I did not know how good I had it. Jesus christ.

Can I tell you how the sausage is made real quick? Despite my affection for the DMG I play all of these games on some kind of modernized hardware. Usually it’s the Analogue Pocket, sometimes it’s my backlit GBA. Both look pretty great, I’d say! They help smooth out the early Game Boy roughness a bit, especially the Analogue, and are easier on my aged eyes. My point is that I’m playing these games in much better conditions than any kid in ’91 would have been, and despite this playing Marble Madness for the Game Boy still felt like I was Sam Neill in Event Horizon.

This abomination should not have been put on store shelves, full stop. You can’t fucking see anything, and it performs worse than the GBC version somehow! Every technical issue I called out previously is exacerbated, plus now the sprites clip and flicker in disorienting ways. I dare not even imagine how horribly this would have performed on the old pea soup screen, afflicted with ghosting and poor lighting. God, imagine giving this to a child to amuse themselves on a car trip! You would be entirely within your rights to call CPS, even if you’re currently in your 40s. Get a retroactive adoption. They owe you one.

Game Boy Marble Madness is so horrid that I quit after a couple attempts and booted up the NES version, terrified that I had somehow brainwashed myself into long-term Marble Apologia. No! That port is still pretty good! The courses are far more navigable thanks to notably weightier marble physics, which allows for better turning without sacrificing speed. The clock is also a bit more forgiving on the home version. Once I recalibrated to playing a good video game for a change I was able to get through it just fine! Do you know how bad a game has to be to result in a sanity check long enough to clear a wholly different port?

I don’t want to write about this any more than I have to. This is a truly odious piece of software, and its cartridges would be better served by having other games flashed onto them entirely at random. Congratulations on making the very bottom of The List, Mindscape! I can’t wait to play your Game Boy port of Klax, you hack frauds!

1/5

01/16/2026
Motocross Maniacs (1989)

Extremely funny that Konami eventually redistributed this as just “Bikers” years later. Guess the Overton Window of what qualifies as “mania” shifted from the 80s to the 90s.

This game is basically Trials’ dad, only the courses are entirely designed around using bursts of nitro to make jumps. On a design level there is something fascinating about creating what’s essentially a platformer where hops are a limited consumable. Where do you add more? How many? How far should you be able to get without them? Do you demand perfection, or make it more of a speed game with emphasis on creative solutions and routing?

Konami answered all of those in the following ways:

Q: Where do you add Nitro?

A: Almost exclusively in locations that require Nitro to reach.

Q: How many?

A: Enough.

Q: How far should you be able to get without them?

A: There will be a ramp on every level that is impassible without use of Nitro.

Q: Perfection or creativity?

A: Get the fuck out of our office.

3/5

01/07/2026
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers (1991)

Let me head off a question at the pass: why this game in particular? It’s a sequel and I haven’t played the original. What gives?

When I was a kid we had a local drug store down the street. A corner of it was eventually converted into a fairly weak video and game rental kiosk with some of the weirdest offerings you can imagine. They rented Game Boy games, which is kind of a terrible idea! My Mom was kind enough to snag a game for me to try now and then, and this was one of ’em. I played it for a weekend, got my ass beat, and we turned it in. After Cubix I figured hey, why not stop by while I was in the licensed game neighborhood?

I’m a 90s kid, which means I was born too late to care about TMNT in its heyday and born too early to care about any of the reboots. None of these goobers mean anything to me. I don’t even know who any of these characters are beyond the titular turts and their rat dad. Apparently someone I beat to death in this was named Baxter Stockman? That’s ridiculous.

You know what I do hold in high esteem? 90s Konami, baby. If there’s one thing you should take away from this writeup, let it be that this game’s soundtrack is yet another collection of impossibly catchy drumlines and kinetic treble. No other company of this era was so reliably producing 8 bit jams that make you want to beat the shit out of people like Konami. I have a working theory that they’re going to end up being one of my favorite entertainment conglomerates as I keep playing these. There are other games of theirs on this confounded handheld device that I already know to be bangers, and I haven’t even played GBC Metal Gear Solid.

I’ve gotten this far in and I haven’t even talked about the game itself yet. This is for a very simple reason: there’s not a lot to talk about. This is a pretty middling arcade-style beat ’em up, and by that I mean it’s full of sequences that feel like they’re more designed to munch quarters than provide much for challenge. It’s not excruciatingly hard, though the last level’s a bit of a bastard. Instead the anchor around your neck will be those shell boys kind of sucking at this whole “ninja” thing.

All 4 turtles are playable here, only differentiated by their weapons on account of the lack of color. Donatello’s stick is the best one and it isn’t particularly close. Barely any non-boss enemies have more than 1 HP, so the extra reach and slower swing speed is basically never a drawback. By contrast we have Raphael, who attacks with a dinner fork and cannot be bothered to extend his arm past 90 degrees. He just does high speed curls with the damn things and that makes him almost useless against bosses, who get i-frames after each hit. I ended up using him a lot, not because I liked him, but specifically because I hated him and used him to eat damage while scouting new levels instead of the boys I actually wanted to use.

Bizarrely, these heavy shell-havers are amazing jumpers and awful walkers. Note that I said “walk”, not run. You don’t do that here. Every level that isn’t an autoscroller is paced at a slow trudge, frequently flipping back and forth to slap baddies on both sides. There is an interesting mechanical detail where you can hit left or right while swinging and the hitbox remains active, which you’ll need to get the hang of immediately because this game constantly throws dudes at you from all directions. This is, unsurprisingly, easiest to accomplish with Don’s bigass stick.

The levels themselves are reasonably varied, but that doesn’t go far when the challenge mostly ramps up by way of just putting more shit on the screen. Why are there so many chompy robot dogs and Chopping Mall drones endlessly streaming out of every crevice? Konami knew damn well what they were doing too. So many sections end with an apology ‘za, often obtained by interrupting a goon’s succulent Italian meal with a stabbing. In true beat’emup tradition it can be completed hitless through liberal applications of jumpkick, but the margins are razor thin. I did no such thing. Shit, I popped two continues on the last level (which just dumps you back to the start, but like hell I was starting over to keep my score) because I never got the hang of not getting shot in the head by turrets. Raph’s just gonna stay in jail forever, and frankly that just means more pizza for the turtles that matter.

2.5/5

01/07/2026
Annihilator (2023)

God damn you, Annihilator. I could – no – should rate you lower, but you know how much I love Smash T.V.

I truly wish I could say that this was great. The core conceit – a shit-awful future city where hooking people up to The Pain Machine and refusing to let them die generates power – is such a sick setting for a revenge story. Shinryu going on a rampage to find out what happened to his wife and daughter is the stuff 80s action movies are made of. Then you get into the gameplay and hey, it’s basically a Smash TV demake! Let’s go! That is, if the game lets you go. Good luck! Yooooooooou’ll need it!

The issues start as soon as the Game Boy logo clears. As far as I know the pre-title screen cutscene is unskippable, which should be a criminal offense punishable by a weekend in at least the level 3 pain mines. Don’t think you can mash through the dialogue either, because if you go a little too quick you’ll break it. Menu buttons will get stuck on the screen, the text boxes will be thrown partway out of frame, the levels won’t look right, it’s a whole thing. Let the game do what it wants or it’s going to pitch a fit.

Which isn’t to say it won’t pitch a fit anyway! Once it gets going it’s mostly fine, but the cracks are evident pretty quickly. You don’t have 4 buttons or a secret Game Boy second stick to aim with, you just hold the shoot button once you’re facing a direction. Usually. Sometimes if you do it too quick Shinryu just doesn’t comply, continuing to shoot where he was aiming prior despite all good sense. There’s a fair bit of inconsistency in the dash move too. Sometimes you’ll fly right by somebody and perfectly 180 to shoot them between the eyes, sometimes you just eat shit. It doesn’t grant i-frames as much as you just have a shmup-style tiny hitbox and can scoot past guys if you use it just so. Honestly I really like that, but the game’s iffy responsiveness diminishes the returns a tad.

What do you actually do? Come on, I already compared it to Smash T.V., you should know. Most of the chapters are all about shooting dudes on a single screen until you’ve murdered enough to make the flashy arrows show up on the edges. With the exception of the federally mandated vehicle section for variety that sucks a bit, that’s the game. This is not a complaint, I love this shit. Everyone’s got their particular flavor of Gamer Gruel that they could eat forever, and I’ll scarf down even the middest of top down shooters if they keep plopping them into my bowl.

The last chapter (at least on the default difficulty, no idea if things change higher up) had a particularly infuriating bug where the only room with a medkit reliably bugged out and wouldn’t let me shoot or leave. Fortunately it’s optional, so I just beat it without the help. It was a pretty sour note to end what was otherwise…fine? It was fine. Annihilator is fine. Almost aggressively so, you can practically feel how much it wants to be better than it is. Apparently Salt & Pixel is working on a fancier version for Steam and I’m genuinely curious to see how it differs once it escapes GB Studio’s rickety confines. There’s something to this one, genuine potential, and I hope that redux reaches it.

2.5/5

Itch page here, and wishlist-able Steam page here!

01/07/2026