Manic Marble 3 – iPhone / iPad App Review

App developer: Rich Olson
Website: http://www.nothinglabs.com/manicmarble3/

Most people are familiar with the Manic Marble series. Now in it’s third incarnation, there’s a full iPad version available too.

Manic Marble is a game which uses your iOS device’s accelerometer to control the speed and direction of your marble as you attempt to travel around a tricky obstacle course. The game play is simple, but obviously requires lots of practise and skill. Even though there are only 8 Levels, this App will keep you busy for hours. The first two versions were very popular on the iPhone and iPod Touch devices, and with the larger screen and higher resolution, the iPad version rivals the previous versions for sure.

The controls are great on both the iPad and iPhone. Although I honestly found it easier to control the acceleration on the iPad since there was more device to handle. On my iPhone the marble was easier to turn/tilt as you need to move your device less to effect the marble. Overall I found that the iPad version felt more ‘realistic’.

The only drawbacks to this game are two things. One, as noted in the iTunes description, some people feel a bit motion sick when playing 3D first-person (or in this case first-marble) games. I am one of those people, so I can only play for a short while before having to give my eyes a rest. The second is the restart point after you fall off the course isn’t consistant. I don’t know if it’s randomly generated, as a feature, or if it’s a bug of the newest version, not quite ironed out yet.

Either way, this game is worth a try. There are other marble games out there, but Manic Marble is consistantly one of the highest quality and best controls. You can always just give the Free Versions a Roll first.

~ChantelleJoy
Tweet Me: @ChantelleJoytwt

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