[{"TitleName":"Marble Madness - The Game","Publisher":"Melbourne House","Author":"Consult Computer Systems, John F. Cain, Bill Scolding","YearOfRelease":"1987","ZxDbId":"0003033","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 17, May 1987","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1987-04-16","Editor":"Teresa Maughan","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nSenior Art Editor: Hazel Bennington\r\nProduction Editor: Sara Biggs\r\nAssistant Editor: Phil South\r\nStaff Writer: Markus Berkmann\r\nDesigner: Darrell King\r\nContributors: Chris Donald, Mike Gerrard, Ian Hoare, Gwyn Hughes, ZZKJ, John Molloy, Rick Robson, Rachael Smith, Terri Wise\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Mark Salmon\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Julian Harriott\r\nProduction Manager: Sonia Hunt\r\nManaging Editor: Kevin Cox\r\nPublisher: Roger Munford\r\nPublishing Director: Stephen England\r\n\r\nPublished by Dennis Publishing Ltd, [redacted] Company registered in England.\r\nTypesetters: Carlinpoint [redacted]\r\nReproduction: Graphic Ideas, London\r\nPrinters: Chase Web Offset [redacted]\r\nDistribution: Seymour Press [redacted]\r\n\r\nAll material in Your Sinclair ©1987 Felden Productions, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the publishers. Your Sinclair is a monthly publication."},"MainText":"Melbourne House\n£14.95\nReviewer: Phil South\n\nYes, it's finally here! The coin-op conversion you'd sell your granny and all her goods and chattels to own! The arcade game that had them rolling in the aisles. Having released the MM Construction Set last year, Melbourne House has now gone rolling ahead with a full implementation of the original game itself, in a special gold trimmed pack, marked \"The Official Version - Deluxe Edition\". On the reverse of the tape is a new improved version of the Construction Set editor program.\n\nMarble Madness was always an arcade favourite, (still is at some venues) and the clinical condition, Marble Madness Queueing Syndrome ranks up there in the British Medical Association's hi-score table with Asteroid Wrist or Defender Thumb. For those of you who never saw it in the flesh, here's a brief rolldown of this wholly spherical scenario.\n\nYou are a heavy metal ball (Whooorrr Deep Purple Kerannnggg!) whose task in life is to roll around the 3D platforms of a far distant planet. En route to your escape, you encounter all manner of villains, fiendish badlets, and cruel blobby things...Brr! Not to mention (well don't then. Ed) the black balls, brooms and spinning hoops.... oh yeah, there's a bit of oil around the place too. The Ed must have been fixing her car on this planet a while ago!\n\nThis is all very well, but how does it play? Very nicely thank you. Which is quite surprising, 'cos there's a tremendous array of baddies doing their stuff (eurr!) on screen at the same time as your little bearing, so the Speccy's doing a lot at a high speed too! The play of the game is true to its arcadian daddy, with all the humps and bumps faithfully reproduced. The programmer must've been a real fan to do it this well!\n\nThe graphics aren't in colour though 'cos something had to go, and the richly soaked colours lost out. An well, you know what they say, 'You can't make an omelette without breaking the space time continuum'. And sure enough, the continuum in this case is monocoloured, that's to say, it's one colour all over, with black or blue lines on it. It doesn't detract from your enjoyment too much, because the game is complete in all other respects, and you spend too much time avoiding the baddies to worry much what colour they are.\n\nI lurve it to bits. The ghosts of the martian marble can finally be laid to rest.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"44","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Phil South","Score":"8","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 63, Jan 1987","Price":"£98","ReleaseDate":"1986-12-16","Editor":"Tim Metcalfe","TotalPages":164,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Tim Metcalfe\r\nDeputy Editor: Paul Boughton\r\nEditorial Assistant: Lesley Walker\r\nSub-Editor: Seamus St. John\r\nDesign: Craig Kennedy\r\nAdventure Writers: Keith Campbell, Paul Coppins, Steve Donoghue\r\nAmerican Correspondent: Marshall M. Rosenthal\r\nArcades: Clare Edgeley\r\nSoftware Consultant: Tony Takoushi\r\nPublicity: Marcus Rich\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Garry Williams\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Katherine Lee\r\nAd Production: Debbie Pearson\r\nPublisher: Rita Lewis\r\nCover: Steve Gibbs\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nJuly-December 98,258"},"MainText":"MACHINE: Spectrum/Amstrad\r\nSUPPLIER: Melbourne House\r\nPRICE: £8.95/£9.95\r\nVERSION TESTED: Spectrum\r\n\r\nHere's a nifty bit of software that no true MM fan should be without - the only problem is that 64 owners aren't likely to get a chance to play around with this useful utility because Melbourne only have the rights for Speccy and Amstrad.\r\n\r\nWhat you get is the normal Marble Madness game plus an editor which allows you to construct your own MM tracks - complete with all the nasties like bubbles, oil slicks and Mary Poppins flying umbrellas. All the ingredients of the arcade classic.\r\n\r\nYou can build your tracks from scratch or simply edit the ten different tracks already included in the program.\r\n\r\nThe construction screen shows a smaller version of the play area with icons representing the different MM track sections ranged down the right hand side of the screen and the nasties/bonus scores/options along the bottom of the screen.\r\n\r\nWhen defining a playing area you are free to move the cursor over any part of the screen. To place a new piece, move the cursor over the shape you want, press fire, that shape appears as a cursor in the play area, where you can move it to the desired position and press fire again to drop it.\r\n\r\nTo delete a piece, move the cursor over it and press fire. All other aliens and special features are placed using the cursor and the fire key.\r\n\r\nOnce you've built a track you can try it out by selecting the \"test\" option. And if it doesn't work out you can go back to the edit mode to put things right.\r\n\r\nYou can go on adding screens until the memory is full up and then you can save your designs, and go back to creating more new MM challenges.\r\n\r\nFancy a break from building? Then just go back to the main menu and select the play the game mode. This gives you as good a game of MM as you can expect on the Speccy.\r\n\r\nThe construction set makes MM a whole new ball game every time you play!","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"54","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Tony Takoushi","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"The Construction Set adds a new dimension to a classic game."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]