What made me curious about this game was that it was advertised as a mix between Super Monkey Ball and Marble Madness. That made me interested in at least trying the game out. I mean, a modern game being advertised as being similar to Marble Madness? I loved that game on the NES!

I was still completely unsure as to what to expect, since I didn’t watch the trailer. But I still picked it up as soon as it became available.

So how do Super Monkey Ball and Marble Madness mix well? Is it more than just a rip-off of both? Read on and see!

Developer: TikGames
Publisher: TikGames
Date of Release: March 26th 2010
Platforms: Playstation 3, on the PSN

Genre: Ball-rolling timed puzzle game??
Players: 1, with a small multiplayer mode for up to 7 players
Rated E for Everyone

Presentation
The graphics are… kinda bland. The hamsters look fine, as long as you don’t zoom in on them (where the look really bad). The levels are filled with ramps, slopes, random shapes, flat areas and random textures. Sometimes it’s various squares of different colors, or different colored lines, and sometimes something representing different types of ground, like ice. The darker levels occasionally make it hard to see anything, though they definitely look a bit better. There’s nothing really special about the graphics here. It’s bland and not incredibly fun to look at. It feels very last-gen. On the technical part of things, there’s quite a few graphical glitches, and in the more intense moments the game shows a lot of screen-tearing. Otherwise though, the game looks okay, and everything represents what it should very well, but it lacks any style of its own, everything is very basic-looking.

I have one big complaint here though: the sound. More specifically the music… It’s so… meh. To explain it in a more understandable manner: Have you ever played an SNES game that had really bad music, mostly just random dis-harmonic sounds that don’t follow any kind of flow or melody? Kinda like, say… some levels in Bubsy 2? Yeah, that’s what it sounds like. The music is just plain bad here. It’s not Bebe’s Kids bad, but not too far off. There’s maybe a track or two that are bearable, but you’ll quickly be tempted to mute the sound, or put some other music. This game BEGS for custom soundtracks. The rest of the sounds are okay, but the hamsters’.. chirping(?) sounds get annoying fast.

Gameplay
Hustle Mode
This is “Super Monkey Ball” mode. The camera is place just behind your hamster-in-a-ball, and you go through mazes and tracks to get to the end, picking up items on the way.

Each level has a “standard” time limit. You have to reach the end before the timer runs out. A feature here is that the time you have left on the timer at the end of a level goes in the “time pool”. The amount in the time pool adds to the standard time of the next level, giving you more time to complete the level. That makes the game a bit on the easy side, but it’s VERY helpful for some of the levels. In addition to the time pool, you gain extra time by picking up watch power-ups littered across the stages. There’s also the occasional green arrows on the floor offering speed boosts. If you get caught by a death-trap, or fall down the level, the game puts you back close to where you died, so you don’t have to be 100% perfect.

There’s various level “themes”. There’s relatively normal level, there’s some race-type levels where you have to run multiple laps, ice levels with slippery grounds, interior levels, “gravity” levels where the gravity is similar to Mario Galaxy’s (but not as well done), and Night levels, which are darker and have nice neon lights everywhere, with floors disappearing leaving you falling down the hole and other weird obstacles. Each level type is pretty interesting in its own right, and require you to deal with different types of obstacles each. The one downside is that multiple levels have a lot of the exact same trap placement and areas and “puzzles” and such. They easily could have done a bit more level designing than this.

Each level doesn’t have a linear path, each of them offers multiple paths, most leading to different obstacles, or offering faster or slower ways to various areas. So each time you go through each level, unless you find faster paths, the game will be slightly different, especially if you go using different hamsters.

You have 3 hamster types, each which have a different power when you press X. The jumper hamster jumps, but not incredibly high unless you time it right on a ramp. This can help you go places the other 2 hamsters can’t go, or can save you from falling down holes. The speedy hamster goes fast for a short while but becomes harder to control. The spiked hamster temporarily gets the ability to ram through certain obstacles, getting him access to areas to other 2 hamsters can’t go, and sometimes acting as shortcuts through the levels. Once you press X to activate your current hamster’s power, you can’t reactivate it for a short while, until the power meter on the top-right of the screen fills up. Definitely adds some variety to the game.

Overall it’s a very fun mode, and it’s pretty fun to try and get better scores and times. Going through using different hamsters adds some replay value. And there’s a trophy for each of them, if you’re into that.

Oh, I should take the time to talk about glitches. There’s a few times where I died for nothing. But the most flagrant glitch I found was in the Gravity levels, where you can end up on the wrong side of a platform and reach a part that only kills you nonstop. So just be careful .

Stunt and Trial mode
After over an hour of playing in Hustle mode, I thought “How is this supposed to resemble Marble Madness?”. Then I checked out Stunt mode. This is exactly like Marble Madness, with different level designs, and much better/smoother controls than on the NES. I really liked playing through this mode.

Here the camera perspective changes from the “behind the hamster” view to an isometric perspective, from above the level, and relatively far away. The goal here, as expected, is to get at the end of the level as fast as possible, going past obstacles and finding the fastest routes to the end. Most of the obstacles are similar to the ones seen in Hustle mode, but the different point of view definitely changes how you deal with them. Like in Marble Madness and the Hustle mode here, falling out of the level, or taking too big a drop, kills your hamster. This puts your hamster back close to where he was before dying.

In Stunt mode, the time you have left at the end of the level goes to a Time Pool, just like in Hustle mode, adding the remaining time of the level to the next levels standard time. In Trial mode, you play each Stunt level seperately, trying to get the best time possible, and you’re graded on how fast you go, with 4 awards you can get for each level(there’s a trophy for getting the best award on all the levels).

There’s really not much more to say about Stunt mode. It’s basically a “what if Marble Madness on NES didn’t control like crap?” kinda thing, which I like. My big problem with it is how few of those levels there are, they can all be done in about 5-15 minutes on your first playthrough. The Trial mode definitely helps by having awards for faster times, which are all terribly hard to get, so they’ll last you a long time. Stunt and Trial mode are definitely quite fun to play, no doubt about that.

Overall
This is a relatively fun game. It has that “cheaply-made game” feel, with the meh graphics and the terrible music, but the gameplay definitely makes up for it. Low-grade graphics/music cannot break a game, as long as the gameplay is solid, such as it is here. Both the Hustle mode and Stunt/Trial modes are very interesting and fun to play, and offer some good challenge as well, especially Trial mode. The replay value is medium, though it can get pretty high if you try to get low times in the Trial levels.

Fans of Super Monkey Ball and Marble Madness will definitely find something to like here. It’s not a must-buy, but it’s worth checking out for sure.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- Very fast-paced
- Very fun to play
- If you really get into it, there’s a good amount of replay value, especially with Trial mode

Cons
- The music is terrible
- Not enough levels in Stunt mode, it ends WAY too fast
- Bland ultra-basic graphics that don’t really have any style
- Very repetitive level design in Hustle mode

The Save Factor
If you’re a Monkey Ball or Marble Madness fan, you should really check it out. I’d say maybe wait for a price drop or sale. The Save Factor for this game would be around $7.

NOTE: We were given a copy of the game for review. This does not affect our judgement of a game.

jobocan Console, Games, ps3, PSN, Review