MARBLE MADNESS (MD - WEST 'EA' vs JAP 'TENGEN') - WHICH IS BEST?

[ZEUSDAZ]

Hi everyone and welcome to the May 2017 of Which Is Best?
(All previous episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...GLOIQy_y29bGub).

Last month I placed two of the most famous remembered games of the ZX Spectrum,...Chuckie Egg vs Manic Miner which no doubt challenged your loyalties to the max (Zeus's sick way of fun) and it was all down to the votes on the WOS site which were heavily in favour of Manic Miner although they all loved Chuckie Egg also but it was those votes that pushed Manic Miner to the winning line with 51 votes to Chuckie Egg's 37 votes, Chuckie was actually well ahead to begin with until the voters at WOS site had their say,...I'm a little bit gutted I have to say as Chuckie Egg was one of my fondest gaming memories, anyway great edition!

This month I place two versions of Marble Madness on the Megadrive / Genesis system against each other,....the Western version by Electron Arts and the Japanese version by Tengen, which would you prefer to have in your collection if you are a Marble Madness fan?!, which is the better conversion?!,...only you can decide that, happy voting!
Oh yes, the time cheat was used to show all of both versions and YES i know I'm not very good at them lol.
[ Show youtube player ]

Zeus

[Shadowfire]

Honestly, the EA version sounds awful.

[Amiga1992]

I had no idea there were different versions! How weird is that? Why did this happen?

Tengen version gets my vote, more arcade-accurate. Gotta replace the western version with this now!

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Akira

I had no idea there were different versions! How weird is that? Why did this happen?

Marble Madness was made by Atari Games. Tengen was Atari Games's home publishing label, so they were granted rights to Atari games almost automatically.

Furthermore, Tengen seldom cared about official licencing, so they would publish their own version even if the game was also ported by someone else.

This happens with a lot of Tengen games, such as Pacman/Ms Pacman, Rampart, Tetris, Klax…

[Retro-Nerd]

The japanese version also supports the mouse/trackball. Doesn't work good enough in emualation and from what i've read on real hardware neither. A good port,compared to the EA crap.

[th4t1guy]

Originally Posted by Akira

I had no idea there were different versions! How weird is that? Why did this happen?

Same thing happened with Amiga versions of TMNT.
See:

http://hol.abime.net/1333
http://hol.abime.net/1335

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

The japanese version also supports the mouse/trackball.

There is a Sega mouse but Marble Madness doesn't show as a supported game (this game was made before the Sega Mouse existed).
I wonder how this mouse works though, the controller port doesn't even have analog inputs.

[Retro-Nerd]

Don't know how it works exactly on real hardware. The Europe/Japanese mouse can be used as mouse and trackball together. You have to flip the mouse, the ball is clickable then = left mouse button. Marble Madness from Tengen supports a trackball, check the options screen.

You can test it with Kega Fusion, F12 captures the mouse for game/emulator controls. Configure the mouse in the Controllers tab (Port 1 = mouse, Use = mouse). Load the game, press F12 for ingame mouse controls and mouse right button for the options. Left mouse for game start.

http://segaretro.org/Sega_Mouse

[Amiga1992]

It's exactly that Sega Retro page I was using for reference and it doesn't mention Marble Madness.

[Retro-Nerd]

The Sega mouse is a mouse and trackball in one device. The game supports trackball controls. Check it for yourself. Maybe it would work better in Kega Fusion using a PC USB trackball instead of normal PC mouse.

The Sega Mouse is a ball mouse, meaning it needs to be cleaned after regular use in order for it to continue to function properly. Despite there being three buttons on a standard control pad, there are only two buttons on a Sega Mouse, A and B, however unusually the unit places its C button on the ball itself - flipping the peripheral turns it into a clickable trackball device.

And verified working on real hardware. Japanese/Europe mouse only, the US Mega mouse doesn't work as a trackball.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post417311

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

compared to the EAB crap.

I blame RCK...

[Retro-Nerd]

Ups!

btw: Somebody hacked the japanese rom for a higher trackball sensitivity. Is somebody here active on the Sega-16 board who could ask for it?

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post755837

[Superman]

The Tengen version is clearly the best. The music on the EA version sounds out of tune.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

The Sega mouse is a mouse and trackball in one device. The game supports trackball controls. Check it for yourself. Maybe it would work better in Kega Fusion using a PC USB trackball instead of normal PC mouse.

Someone should update that damn Sega Retro page then!
Wish I had a Sega Mouse though. Flipping it over is a clever idea.

[ZEUSDAZ]

Originally Posted by Akira

I had no idea there were different versions! How weird is that? Why did this happen?

Tengen version gets my vote, more arcade-accurate. Gotta replace the western version with this now!

That much better eh?! ;-)

[Jope]

I only needed to watch a few seconds of the Tengen version to prefer it. I own the arcade cabinet. :-)

[Nobby_UK]

+1 for Japanese Version

[ZEUSDAZ]

Jap "tengen" version wins, 24 votes to 2 for the ea version.
New edition coming shortly.