Okay, today the second out of three video games that I am going to talk about this week. This is Marble Mountain.

I’ll start by saying that it is practically impossible to talk about Marble Mountain without mentioning a 1984 Atari game known as Marble Madness. It was released during the time when stand-up arcade games were going out of style, and the point of the game was to get a marble to the end of a trail.

The issue is that Marble Madness had tracks that were nothing more than 3-D graphs. It had some hint of M.C. Escher, like the game The Bridge, but the courses were pretty minimalist. Part of it was due to graphical restraints back then.

Marble Mountain has much more beautiful courses, and the landscapes are natural green, brown, and all other colors of nature. In fact, it is pretty clear that the programmers spend a lot of time building the natural landscapes of this place, and making places that look like cities for the marble player to roll around in.

I also have to give kudos to the designers for giving the game a great sense of control. The game is all about making certain that when you roll, you don’t roll too far and go off the edge. Oftentimes, the camera can shift to give you a better view, but at no time does that ever mess up the controls.

Still, I wish that I had a trackball on my computer so I could play it like I did Marble Madness in the arcade. This is a pretty difficult game to beat, I will say that.

I will recommend this game, and you can get it on the Steam Store for about $9.99.