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Playing this game is, like...meeting Sophia Loren; Morgan Fairchild; Susan Sarandon. You
remember Arabesque; The Seduction; The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Then you meet them, and
it's like, "Oh, right. Now, she's—she's 75 years old now." And it's not quite Rocky
Horror Picture Show anymore. That's what this is like.
Not quite Marble Madness anymore.
It's Marble Madness, and Klax, for the Game Boy Advance.
Of course, fairness to Susan Sarandon, that's how time works. And if we're being completely
honest with each other, uh...two things. One, I wouldn't care, it's still Susan Sarandon.
And two, in this case, time is not the culprit. Marble Madness, much like Susan Sarandon,
once had the best orbs in the biz. Back in the day, no one looked better in their underwear
than Susan Sarandon, and Marble Madness.
Alright, I lost the analogy.
Point is...I don't know. It's got to be in there somewhere.
So this is a cheap compilation of two classic arcade games, together on a single Game Boy
Advance cartridge. Although...I mean, two games is just barely a "compilation." That's,
like, the least you have to do to be a compilation. Nonetheless, there were actually a lot of
these on the GBA, and most of them were pretty bad. This one's worse. What you have here
is an okay version of Klax...and the worst version of Marble Madness ever made.
This is a game about physics...with totally broken physics.
That's like covering up Susan Sarandon in Pretty Baby. Defeats the whole purpose.
I'm gonna find it, I know I had a point there.
So speaking of Marble Madness...uh, you won't find many games we treasure more than Marble
Madness, here at Classic Game Room. Watch my review of the NES version to hear exactly
how much we treasure it, but suffice to say...we treasure Marble Madness. But then something
like this happens, and we go f*cking ballistic. I've never seen people so angry, around here...as
when I popped in this sacrilegious little sh*t sandwich.
It's like they took Marble Madness and just broke it.
Which, in turn, broke our hearts. So. Thanks a lot, jerks.
I mean, I don't even know where to begin. Like I said, the physics are so unpredictable,
the game's barely even playable. But then you find out...oh, there's only three levels.
So, you know, they just cut the game in half. Which I was gonna get pissed about, until
I realized...wait, that's actually the first good thing about this game. Let's just get
it over with. It's like someone at a meeting said, "You know, I think, maybe we should
only do half of it."
"Because we did a f*cking terrible job on the first half."
Like, they didn't even include the wave machine.
The wave machine doesn't wave.
What happened at the wave machine meeting? That's what I want to know.
Fortunately, Klax is much better. In fact, you should think of this as just a GBA version
of Klax, because that's all it really is. And to have Klax, in a portable form...that's
actually cool. But then again, even Klax has its problems. Specifically, control problems.
More specifically, it's easy to overrun your spot...and go past the column where you meant
to stop. So there's a little imprecision here, and that can be frustrating to deal with.
Of course, on the other hand...at least in terms of the presentation, everything's in
order. So even if they don't play like they should, the games at least look and sound
like they should.
I suppose ten years ago, this would've been a slightly less pointless thing to have. I
mean, the ability to play Klax on the go...that made this compilation worth something. But
Marble Madness takes that value and flushes it down the toilet. Which is fitting, because
this version poops on a classic. I guess collectors might have interest, but...unless you have
to have this, there's no reason to have Marble Madness and Klax, for the Game Boy Advance.
These marbles are...starting to get saggy.