The Xbox 360 did a lot of good for gaming as a whole, from sturdy online play to standardising one of the best controller designs, and much more. One of the biggest wins for the console though was the introduction of Xbox Live Arcade; a place for (initially) small downloadable games meant to show off titles and gameplay styles that may not have been able to fight it out on the shelves of stores. An early addition to this library was Marble Blast Ultra, and I couldn’t tell you how long I spent playing this wonderful ball-rolling puzzler. Myself and a friend would challenge each other in the leaderboards constantly, and even when just playing against myself it was such a blast.
Enter Marble It Up! Ultra, a spiritual sequel to this from the minds behind that XBLA classic. Should you be familiar with the aforementioned Marble Blast Ultra, know that what we get here is an expansion on that exact concept, with new levels and modes to enjoy.
If you’re not old like me though, Marble It Up! Ultra sees us rolling a marble about dozens of short but often tricky stages in search of getting the fastest time to cross the goal. The physics are fair but also a little tricky to get used to, it being all too easy to send our ball careening off the track because we put too much spin on it. Early stages teach us the ropes, be that simply gathering speed by jumping, how to navigate some of the trickier segments later on, or the need to collect gems before the goal will open up.
While things don’t really get too tricky in and of themselves until the very last area, the point of the gameplay is to get the fastest time possible, and it’s here that the challenge reveals itself very quickly. It’s easy to get a bronze or even silver most of the time, but the gold and even harder platinum times soon prove to be the feat of skill they should be. This is what sucked me into Blast so well, and MiUU has done exactly that as well. I’ve found myself on several stages playing over and over, shaving milliseconds off my times as I figure out a new route or simply a better placement for a jump.
There are items to find and pick up that help, such as a speed boost or one that slows the clock to a crawl while we still move at normal speed. These are good to grab if we can, but at the same time can be placed just enough out of the way to make it hard to get good use out of them. Some levels base their entire challenge around them too, which makes it even harder to get fast times as miss using an item means we need to wait a second for it to respawn. I must admit that these levels were the least fun to try and improve my time on as a result, but also because it slows down the action somewhat too.
The real thrills come when speed is the aim of the game, and boy, so MiUU let us rack it up. One stage in particular – Mobius Madness – is shaped in such a way as to have us flying along at breakneck speed and as a result was my favourite level by far. I can see this being a good one for friends to compete on too, with the times no doubt separated by milliseconds.
Thankfully the majority of the levels prioritise speed, and as such there are many here that may wind up as good battle grounds for friends to fight over. It’s rare for the Gold time to be more than a minute too, so rounds and replays are fairly snappy. There are also dozens of unlocks to pick up; some hidden in the levels, others as rewards for progression, and more still as simple purchases via the in-game currency earned. There’s no sign of real world purchases though, which is nice considering the amount of colours, designs, hats, and trails to pick up.
There are more than enough single player levels to keep us going for a while (especially looking for the gold and platinum medals) but we also get two extra modes on top.
One – the Weekly Challenge – offers up remixed levels and objectives, such as a series of levels to beat with higher jump ability and an extra boost per round, for example. These change, well, weekly, and have been a nice alternative to the main set of levels.
The other is a multiplayer mode. Rather than simply racing to the end though, we find ourselves in various game modes battling other players. They’re all rough spins on ideas we’ve seen elsewhere; Zombie has one player hitting the others to infect them and turn them to their team; Sumo finds us battling over control points while trying to bash other players out of the way; Soccer is all but Rocket League in look and gameplay, albeit a lot slower paced without the rocket cars; finally, Gem Hunt is exactly that, either played free for all or in teams.
These are a neat addition, and I certainly had fun with those I could find a game with in the pre-release period, though again to make the most of this you’ll definitely be better off grabbing a few friends than relying on the matchmaking. Cross platform play in included as well, which should give it more of a fighting chance to get a dedicated audience.
Conclusion
All in all, I’ve had a..blast… playing Marble it Up! Ultra this past week. There are a lot of levels to work through, the times are truly a challenge, and some of the designs are masterfully done. Add in the weekly challenges and multiplayer and we’ve got an easily recommended arcade title that should provide entertainment for some time to come.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
