Marble Blast

Marble Blast is quite addictive. Having to move the psycadelic sphere around the various obstacle courses will keep you pinned to your keyboard for hours. Even if you finish the track the first try through, there's always the opportunity to get a better time.....

For instance, when I finally got the chance to play the game (I had to send my 6 year old son to bed to get access to the computer) I figured that my many years of hanging out in video arcades in my youth would give me an edge and allow me to just whomp on the game. I was sadly mistaken. Not only did I have to retry a number of levels as I learned the controls. I found as I progressed through the levels that my son had acquired much better times for completing the levels that me. Now, I ask you, how is that fair?

In the Beginner levels the game will take the time to teach you the ins and outs of the game. You will get an introduction to the various "Power Ups" that can be acquired on the various levels and how to use the controls. (Controls are VERY simple - WASD for the direction you roll, and the arrow keys (or mouse) for perspective. That's it.) And have an opportunity to play with them and master their use (heheheheh). Don't let that fool you into thinking it's a simplistic or overly easy game to play though.

Once you complete the Beginner levels its time to move on to the more challenging Intermediate and Advanced levels. Unlike other games, its not just playing the same level over again with more obstacles or more opponents or a shorter time to complete the task. The Intermediate and Advanced levels are quite different and provide their own challenges for the marble aficionado.

This is not a complicated game, but it is absolutely fantastic for a few hours of mindless entertainment as the desire to see the next level keeps you at it till you get there. It has a good replay value. It would be great as a party game to set up on a computer in your living room so that you can heckle your friends as they run the marbles off the edge of the play area. And, as my 6 year old son has shown, is great for all ages.

System Requirements:

Windows 98/SE/ME/2000/XP
Pentium II® 400, 64 MB RAM
OpenGL or DirectX® Compatible 3D Graphics Accelerator
DirectX® compatible Soundcard

Macintosh OS X (version 10.1 or greater)
G4 Processor Recommended
64 MB RAM
OpenGL Compatible 3D Graphics Accelerator

Linux Distributions
Including: Lindows 3.0, Redhat 7.1+, SuSE 7.1+, Mandrake 8.x+, Debian 3.0+.
Pentium 400, 128 MB RAM,
NVIDIA TNT2, ATI Radeon 8500 or better 3D Graphics Accelerator Linux-supported sound card.
Kernel 2.4 and glibc 2.2, XFree86 4.0 or newer with hardware accelerated OpenGL drivers.