Marble Madness 2 arcade 3 player 60fps

Best viewed in 60 fps. I'm player 1 (blue), MrMario is player 2 (red) and Mark is player 3 (green). / mrmariobros222
This game is also known as Marble Man: Marble Madness II. Note that one extra try on the final stage was cut from the video. The number of tries on the final stage was set to 5, instead of the default 2.
Title 00:00
Practice 00:08
Sandbox 1:17
Icebox 2:06
Astral 2:48
Highrise 4:29
Oasis 5:29
North Pole 6:15
Sunburst 7:29
Wacky 9:20
Deep Sea 11:12
Weird Walls 12:18
Silly 13:46
King of the Mountain 15:54
Attract Mode 23:15

[@wbl_unlimited]

Giving them faces and voices was a horrible mistake.

[@ExtremeWreck]

Nice to see this game now preserved. Doesn't look too bad, though I think the voices could've been cut for a single announcer that could've sounded like Cam Clarke's deep voice.

[@adrianwaynereavill7899]

I've been waiting to see this for 30 years

[@ryan2t4]

The reason Marble Madness II cancelled, because early 90s, is hype for fighting game genre.

[@Zontar82]

when it came out sf2 wasn't even released, dude

[@therealobanir]

@@Zontar82 It certainly was. SF2 was released in arcades in Feb '91.

[@R00K07]

This is one of those games that's so Blast Processed you can feel the music behind your eyeballs for every low note.

[@michipeka9973]

As they say "too much blast processing kills blast processing"

[@dickoon]

I thought I'd never get to see this in full, so thank you very much for sharing - and, indeed, for your very long history of contributions in the field.
The ingredients are all there, but somehow this feels like a confusing mess and doesn't seem to have the charm of the original, and I'm not quite sure why.

[@BullockDS]

The ingredients may be all there, but they're no good when you half-bake them.

[@invisisolation]

I initially didn't think very highly of the level design. I think it's not great in singleplayer, but multiplayer? That's a totally different story!

[@werpu12]

From what I read, the controls ruined the arcade machines hence it never made it into the arcades. They got the insane idea to replace the trackball with joysticks, which does not match with a game like this.
The game itself looks very good!

[@miketate3445]

That's the most FM synth that anything has ever FM synthed.

[@JackTheGamer3]

I knew you'd make video on this eventually!

[@arronmunroe]

I was lucky to be able to do it as soon as I did.

[@JackTheGamer3]

@@arronmunroe You beat me to it!! XD

[@SlappyHappy2000]

How'd you get the sampled sounds to be so loud? They always seem quiet when I play on MAME

[@arronmunroe]

retropie.org.uk/forum/assets/uploads/files/1592580538768-deathsmile_slider_options.png
If you go into the slider controls, you can change the volume for "ADPCM" although this also makes the drums louder. I actually used FB Neo instead of MAME, and I hadn't changed any volume settings.

[@cutieincosplay]

I love the creepy how some of the music is creepy just like the first one! 💙

[@Rothron]

Seems like they focused too much on the "Madness" aspect. These levels look like they were handcrafted from tiles rather than ray-traced and then the tiles created from that, like in the original. As a consequence the levels lack the coherence of the original's.

[@DaveWalls]

All kinds of awesome. What happened at 17:21, with the disappearing red ball, but time is still running?

[@arronmunroe]

At 16:34 is when the red player disappears for some reason. Must be some kind of bug.

[@VideoSmarts1]

Wonder if they’ll ever do a release by Arcade 1Up

[@heimlichvonbladderburst8348]

MM 1 was cool for the sounds and the graphics. There was nothing like it at the time. You would play it just to experience it even if you got no where near the finish. It was like you were playing something from the future. Sadly, MM 2 looks like an tacky over-caffeinated mess with none of the appeal of the original. Very interesting to see it at last though.

[@Clonuigi]

Never heard of this

[@mdot_carta]

omg never knew this existed and you dont mention defeqoneko

[@georgeshelton6281]

It's too bad that the green marble player didn't try too hard, even though it was difficult to handle.

[@Spikero2]

There's a II?

[@arronmunroe]

It wasn't officially released. It only became publicly available more recently.

[@user-ic4oc2xd5d]

青 ユン・緑 ヤン 赤 春麗

[@JackTheGamer3]

What Screen Recorder did you use? This looks sharp!! ^^

[@arronmunroe]

Normally, I would use the MAME avi record feature, but in this case, it was FB Neo.

[@JackTheGamer3]

@@arronmunroe How did you get this game to run on FBneo?

[@arronmunroe]

There is nothing to it. All recent nightly builds include the game.

[@JackTheGamer3]

@@arronmunroe Beeeet!!!

[@JackTheGamer3]

@@arronmunroe Do you just upload the Avi by itself or do you use something else?

[@SkyTheLeafeon]

How exactly did you get netplay working with this?

[@arronmunroe]

The emulator FB Neo has a netplay feature.

[@ZX3000GT1]

I tried it as well, and it's damn near unplayable without the trackball IMO. Digital joysticks simply makes the gameplay feel much worse than the first game. Shame since otherwise it looks really cool.

[@turrican3839]

The game controls awfully on cabinet apparently but on emulator is controls almost exactly like the first game, set aside the boost function

[@ZX3000GT1]

@@turrican3839 Well, I tried it on MAME (Couldn't even tried the actual cab unless someone decided to bring said cab to the third world country I live in lol), and I miss the way you can finesse the controls on a trackball (I do have a trackball that I use for games like MM1 and SegaSonic), so it doesn't control the same at all.

[@turrican3839]

@@ZX3000GT1 that's because the game doesn't contain code for the trakball, that was removed from the game during development after Atari didn't feel like it was worth manufacturing and maintaining, I play these games on keyboard, my only problem with the controls is that it's a bit boost-reliant but overall the controls have been transported very well!

[@arronmunroe]

I have never had the chance to play a real Marble Madness with a trackball, but even with a joystick, I would still say the original version plays better on the emulator. The reason for that is because the analog joystick can still take advantage of the full range of movement, but for the second game, it plays the same with a dpad as it does with a joystick.

[@turrican3839]

@@arronmunroe as long as it doesn't have the barf physics from the overrated NES port and heaviness of the Master System port, it's all good haha

[@turrican3839]

Everyone complains about the controls, but on emulator it controls pretty much the exact same as it did on the original game?

[@zenksren8206]

Kind of, controls for the 1st game on emulator are mapped to the arrow keys but because it's a trackball you're not going to get precision and you need to change the default settings or else the ball will be way too slow

[@quintinmorse26]

Do you think you could do chip n dale rescue rangers 1 nes 2 players?

[@arronmunroe]

It's an older video, so the quality is lower, but I had already done that. czcams.com/video/d8HrH1kqanc/video.html

[@Zontar82]

in mame 244 game is not there yet

[@ryanprjgamingchannel9437]

What!? A player's marble popping because of game over (out of time) can actually kill others!? (3:21) Pretty sure they shouldn't...

[@arronmunroe]

I think it's the bad guy above the red marble that killed him.

[@ryanprjgamingchannel9437]

@@arronmunroe The hostile AI-controlled black marbles are known as "Steelies". Oh, you meant it wasn't of your accord that he died. Whoops.

[@nelsonreyes-alvarez605]

How did you get this game on mame?

[@arronmunroe]

You would need the very latest MAME version to play it. You can find a copy of the game if you search for marblmd2.zip.

[@terrablader]

@@arronmunroe Can you comment on backstory about how the ROM got its contents to MAME I read the owner of the two machines did not want to do such. What transpired to make it public? Edit I just read up on it I guess was semi anonymous leak

[@michipeka9973]

I really dislike that they gave faces or body parts to EVERYTHING (the worst must be the naked guys with stones) in a misguided attempt to appeal to children - or make it "hip" or "radical". The same goes for the voices and silly digitized soundfx, overall everything is too busy and irritating as hell (even the high score board features woosh sound effects). It's like they did not understand what made the first game a success and what made its identity : I really liked the etheral "escheresque" almost abstract feel of the original.

[@GayKermit-._-.]

I agree. The first game looks difficult but relaxing. This game feels like they tried too hard to turn marble madness into something it's not. This huge successful franchise when it should've stayed as a simple game like tetris.

[@AlgaeNymph]

And here I thought nobody else would feel the same as I do, because "faces pop" or some marketing nonsense. The same nonsense that shelved this game for Guardians of the Hood, which I never heard of until UCBVG told us about it.

[@noelht1]

Both the graphics and the sound have gone badly backwards from the game one

[@opo3628]

Ehh, the first game was better.