I wasn't allowed to rent Marble Madness as a kid because my mom kept mistaking the "marble falling off the stage sound" as my baby brother crying.

@RussellB

6 ай бұрын

How did she know what it sounded like unless you rented it? Why not just lower the volume? Something is fishy here, I think there must be some ulterior motive.

@BB-te8tc

6 ай бұрын

@RussellB we rented it once and then we weren't allowed to rent it again. Sorry that wasn't clear.

@user-a5Bw9de

6 ай бұрын

What a bizarre story. Maybe your brother was actually the marble falling off the stage.

@rootbeer_666

6 ай бұрын

Good thing Yoshi’s Island wasn’t the game of choice at the time

@FallicIdol

6 ай бұрын

That’s hilarious

John Elway is the kind of game where, if you tried to purchase it from a local game store rather than a big box operation, the knowledgeable proprietor would stop you at the register and hand you Tecmo Bowl instead. "Trust me."

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

Those game store guys were the real ones. Much respect.

One of my favorite memories of working at FuncoLand was how John Elway's Quarterback was abbreviated on our price newspapers: "John E Qback". Since this trash game typically sold for about $.19 we had lots of clueless parents asking for the "Johnny B Quick" or "John Equaback" game solely based on price for their kids.

Adding insult to injury: you could actually play as John Elway in Tecmo Bowl.

Nintendo Power gave Marble Madness one page of coverage per minute of gameplay. That has to be a record.

@apollosungod2819

6 ай бұрын

Nintendo Power Magazine would essentially teach the player the first couple of levels or all the levels if the game was short which they mostly were and so that the Nintendo players would not have a hard time... that's what they did and why so many became Nintendo fans. Meanwhile Sega of America's staff NEVER bothered to copy what Nintendo was doing which is why they fades quickly.

@Bubblun1

6 ай бұрын

@@apollosungod2819 Sega had Sega Visions magazine which was essentially the same concept with less hype.

Can you really blame Rare for John Elway's Football being so lacklustre? It just matches the amount of enthusiasm your average Brit has for American Football.

@TeruteruBozusama

6 ай бұрын

The feeling I got too 😅

@DSMTheEditor

6 ай бұрын

Which is funny cause Rare went on to make one of the greatest baseball games ever with Ken Griffey Jr's Winning Run

12:27 He has no style He has no grace John Elway has a funny face

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

So excited for John Elway Country 3: Joe's Theis Mannia

Even watching Marble Madness has a sense of peril. It continues to have a unique sense of fantasy.

@JeremyParish

7 ай бұрын

I think that's just because I’m really bad at it in this footage

@JazGalaxy

6 ай бұрын

The idea of taking it upon yourself to program marble physics on a completely 2d game is mind boggling. The illusion that you are operating something that is subject to its own momentum and weight is completely believable.

@pragmax

6 ай бұрын

@@JeremyParish Honestly, I think you captured a perfectly normal playthough to me. That, or we're both bad at this game.

@ValkyrieTiara

6 ай бұрын

@@JazGalaxy Now imagine doing that in 1989, limited by the specs of the NES's hardware. In assembly! No object oriented language, no libraries, no nothing. Just you and the machine. The people at Rare really were wizards in those days.

@ValkyrieTiara

6 ай бұрын

@@pragmax It's both. Everyone is bad at Marble Madness lol

My favorite part about John Elways QB was when your player scores a td he starts jumping up and down like a lunatic. Your teammates jog to the end zone as well, seemingly to get collaboration that a score has been made, before joining in the jump fest. It’s like they weren’t entirely sure just yet.

Marble Madness has always held a place in my heart. I would love to see a modern take that doubled down on the weirdly intense atmosphere and abstract, perhaps even non-euclidan geometery.

@ColdPie

6 ай бұрын

Played the first Super Monkey Ball? It's excellent.

@HydefHyde

6 ай бұрын

@@ColdPie I have and it is, but it doesn't scratch that itch! Beyond the simple fun gameplay there's just this sinister element to MM, with the cold glass of geometric MC Escher environments floating in black space, the anxious music, things like Pink Floyd-esque hammers growing out the ground to smash you, all of the other weird exotic dangers, the player marble being personified with the weird scream sound effects and animations, etc. Check out the arcade version's OST sometime, it was the first arcade machine to utilize FM synth and stereo. Same tracks as the NES version but quite a different and fuller character to it.

@makaveli4205

6 ай бұрын

Marble madness had a sequel made just never got released the video is on you tube looked awesome too

Rare's NES output is interesting because I can't think of many companies (aside from Tose) who are so open about their games only being as good as their paycheck. When it was an internal project, or they were paid well, they were one of the best devs on the system. Or else they'd just as happily crap out a rush job with no shame. So the gulf between their highs and lows is vast.

Marble Madness on the NES is still a blast to just zip through. RARE did a great job with that conversion.

@makaveli4205

6 ай бұрын

The best way to play it is the arcade machine. Got a lot of quarters from me in the early 90s.

There was a bug in John Elway's that you could trigger by mashing the d-pad back and forth that made the quarterback so fast it was impossible to tackle him. It was the most famous "feature" of the game.

I had John Elway's Quarterback as a hand-me-down game in my childhood. I saw its fair share of play not because my brother and I cared for football, but simply we had a limited library. The only fun part of that game is selecting a certain play ( I don't recall which one) that for some reason gave the receiver of the pass ludacris speed. It was practically a free touch down every play.

@Hypnocabbage

6 ай бұрын

It's the "NORMAL PLAY" option that you can see at 13:15; you highlight it and wait for the play selection timer to run out. And yeah, the left side wide receiver is so ludicrously fast it makes Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson look fair and well-balanced.

@adamhaggstrom7598

6 ай бұрын

I know exactly what you mean. I remember that glitch perfectly.

I’m here to admit that I wax nostalgic about John Elway’s Quarterback.

I think even as the style and art of the console video game was being expanded and developed, fantastic ports like Marble Madness still had a place on the NES. Sometimes you just want good, challenging, reliable arcade fun.

Assuming the limit for team names was 12 characters, I wonder who thought it was a better idea to go with San Franciso instead of SanFrancisco.

One thing to note about the music of Marble Madness is that the course tracks are textbook examples of minimalism, a music compositional trend at the time of the game's release whose presence in the mainstream was otherwise limited primarily to background tracks to educational presentations.

John Elway's QB in the arcade was one of my all-time favs. Me and some other guys in my town would all meet at the machine saturday mornings and we'd host unofficial tournaments for it. We'd all brag about our scores and who had the highest ranking one. We'd just play the game and talk trash on each other's fav NFL team. Was really fun and I miss those strangers. wherever they are now.

I always thought Elway's face on the game's cover looked a little goofy, maybe it's the teeth.

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

Not your imagination, he's goofy as hell here

And I go la la la la, he's got the works.

Marble madness is awesome. The music is really good.

Excellent takes as always! Atari Games themselves recognized Marble Madness' shortness, and tried to make a sequel with over twice as many levels. Sadly, Marble Madness II hit test locations at just the wrong time, just as Street Fighter II was tearing up arcades, and also suffered from a managerial decision to replace its trackball controls with joysticks. Only now is it finally playable in MAME. (I personally think WB, I believe the current legal rights holder, should give it a commercial release for a few bucks on current consoles.)

11:45 - And they couldn't even get a picture of him actually wearing a helmet. That's an obvious composite.

I love it when you wonder onto other topics like a modern James Burke.

Ah, just hearing the tunes of Marble Madness, a game I haven't played in well over two decades made it all come rushing back. I was never good at the game, but boy did that game have style! (Also sounds like the arcade you visited were playing a slowed down Saria's Song in the background, hehe.)

For what it's worth, I think the June 89 date is right for California games. That's when the rental store I used to go to got it...and I know I first played both of these games in the summer of 89.

My neighbor, who would go on to play college football for an FBS team, had the John Elway game. If you left the cursor on the menu where you could flip the play left or right and let the countdown expire, there would be a single receiver with about 5 times the speed of every other player on the field. You could just complete a pass, run around the moronic AI defense for an entire quarter, then score when time ran out. Every game we played against each other devolved into this, running one play per quarter for a TD, until the score was guaranteed to be 14-14 at the end of regulation. Thankfully he eventually got Tecmo Bowl

@Herrikias

6 ай бұрын

The fast receiver glitch really elevated that game for me and my sister. We pulled it off by always selecting blitz. Once implemented, the speedster would do laps around the field to run down time, baiting the defense into tidal waves of ineffective tackles, until their hubris got the long-distance runner smeared. We were young enough that we did not learn our lesson and jumped right back into showboating.

@pjw5328

6 ай бұрын

Yes, JEQB did have a spring-loaded joystick in the arcades. Our local mall arcade had one and I remember that feature (not really a game I ever played much but one of my brother’s friends was pretty good at it). Leland also made a series of arcade baseball games around the same time and on the same hardware, and those also used a spring-loaded joystick for batting and pitching to give players better angle and velocity control. A pizza place near my house had Baseball: The Season 2 so I played a fair bit of that one (I sucked, but it was still fun). AFAIK the baseball games never got any home ports, though. As for Marble Madness, I rented that a couple times and actually beat it. I thought it was way easier on the NES with the D-pad than it was in the arcade (think the furthest I’ve ever gotten in the arcade is stage 4). Edit: oops, this was supposed to be a separate comment, not a reply. Lol I'm blaming the mobile app for that one.

I remember our terrible joke for that game as kids: John Elway wants his quarter back. Luckily it was a temporary trade with my brother's friend.

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

The spiritual ancestor of “Lightning returns Final Fantasy XIII”

11:49 you’re right, I do want to fight John Elway

Roxette and Star Trek TAS? Well done sir.

John Elway's visage triggers a flight-or-fight response in football fans too. Even Broncos fans like me.

@rootbeer_666

6 ай бұрын

I wasn’t even much of a football fan as a kid but in growing up in NEOhio, I knew Browns fans had a problem with seeing that face for sure.

@FallicIdol

6 ай бұрын

I’m a lifelong Chiefs fan. The last several years have been fun, but back then, Elway owned us.

I liked Marble Madness, and now I know why. Thanks, Rare!

@makaveli4205

6 ай бұрын

It's a super hard game. Very addictive though.

@XanthinZarda

6 ай бұрын

@@makaveli4205 Without question. Bless me, I've never made it past silly.

@makaveli4205

6 ай бұрын

@@XanthinZarda best way to play it is the arcade cabinet with the track ball

FINALLY! You got to John Elway's Quarterback. I know you said people don't wax nostalgic about this game, and I love what you do to pieces, but I have to say that I must be the one person who *does* wax nostalgic about this game. I did not really care for American football in the slightest at the time, but all of my friends were going on and on about John Madden's Football, so I asked my parents for a similar game on the NES, for either my birthday, or Christmas. When I opened it up, I didn't know what to think; I'd never even heard of John Elway. Popping it in, I got even more confused about what to do, so it got shelved for a while. Until I got bored of my current gaming sessions. I decided I was gonna pull it out, and no matter what, I was gonna figure out just how to play the game, and not get intimidated by it. As it turns out, over multiple play sessions, I got *really good* at it. I found certain repeatable patterns with selecting a particular play every turn (I forget which one), and I knew in just what direction to run. And run and run. And get a touchdown! And when my guy started jumping up and down in the end-zone, with all his teammates joining him, I just got a huge rush of those endorphins to my brain! I would sometimes get up and do the jumping along with them. And the box art... I don't know why, but sometimes I could just sit, and stare at it for a while, finding it really nice to look at. Maybe I found him attractive or something; I dunno. All I know is that everything about this game was perfect to me. When I got a Genesis, and a chance to try John Madden Football, I was actually very disappointed, as it was nothing like the streamlined, simple style of John Elway's Quarterback. I would tell my friends that if they had an NES, I thought John Elway's Quarterback was a much better game, and certainly far simpler, and easier for a non-football fan like me to get joy out of. So, I guess I'm your *one person* waxing nostalgic about John Elway's Quarterback. Thank you *so much* for doing a retrospective on the game, Jeremy. You've made me very happy.

@makaveli4205

6 ай бұрын

Tecmo super bowl is the best football game on nes

@lifestream_real

6 ай бұрын

@@makaveli4205And you are welcome to your opinion. I am happy that you enjoyed that game so much.

The Sega Master System had a *TRACK BALL?!* They've been doing what Nintendon't a lot longer than I had previously realized.

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

Look at this guy over here who doesn't watch Segaiden!

@HPRshredder

6 ай бұрын

@@JeremyParish

Whenever they suddenly change the rules at work I think of marble madness and the silly stage. Everything you know is wrong.

The Gyruss arcade machines I played as a kid had either a weighted, Arkanoid-style wheel or a rotary controller with an angled stick on it like 720 Degrees, IIRC. Definitely not an 8 way.

Those Marble Madness maps showed up in so many magazines, I know the game by memory despite only ever playing the first level!

I can't remember football games like those even being a thing here in Europe, but Marble Madness? We knew marble, and we knew the madness therein. It boggles my mind the full game was that short, I never saw the end-screen due to the difficulty and knowing it's reslly that short just feels like mockery. The game just ran back through time to spit in my face and mock my lack of skill, one last time. I blame you for this final stab from hells heart, Jeremy Parish.

You didn't have to go so hard on Elway's mug 😂

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

I feel like Mother Nature already beat me to it

I cannot understand why 11 year old me was so obsessed with JE’sQB, but I was.

@TeruteruBozusama

6 ай бұрын

All I wanted as a 6 year old was having white mice and becoming a black belt in karate, so most of us have weird obsessions in parts of our lives.

Marble Madness is one of my favourite NES games. I actually think it controls better than most folks give it credit for.

@makaveli4205

6 ай бұрын

The best way to play is the arcade machine. You need that track ball for better control.

The extra colors make the Master System version look amazing!

The first two games I got, used from the classifieds of my newspaper in the late 80s, were Super Mario Bros 2 and John Elway's Quarterback. Bought my used NES separately from another guy. Only other games for sale at the time was an unknown to me. Ninja something... Ninja Guy Dan? Never heard of him, but John Elway? Sign me up! Alas, mistakes are how we learn...

Roxette! =)

One day without a Xevious or Etrian Odyssey reference.

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

Remember, seven days without a Xevious reference makes one weak

I love how some sports personalities are preserved in amber because of their video game appearances. Man Elway looks young on that cover - he leathered up nicely though. But like how Bo Jackson will be remembered for being unstoppable... in Temco Bowl. Or how accurately Hakim Olajuwon's domination of the post is reflected in NBA Live 95.

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

Leathered up?! Did not expect this AO-rated plot twist

@AverageDrafter

6 ай бұрын

More like 40 years of dry mountain air will turn one's mug into a catcher's mitt.

@a.calder8217

6 ай бұрын

OOOOOOOOOOOOH MYYYYYYYYY!

Red Marble 55 Blue Marble 10

That intro looks like it was filmed at PRGE. Great meeting you there again this year

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

Indeed it was. Thanks for coming out to say hello! Whoever you are!

@flakesmobile

6 ай бұрын

@@JeremyParish I bought and asked you to sign a copy of Super NES works. I was indecisive on which one to get. Haha. Not sure what else might help identify me.

I have been getting into Atari stuff with the release of the 2600+, one of Tramiel's biggest mistakes was not having a good relationship with Atari Games. The 7800 had potential if Atari had been led by someone with more vision and interest in making a competitive system.

@billkendrick1

6 ай бұрын

There were a number of great Atari Games titles for the Lynx (e.g. STUN Runner). That didn't seem to happen in the Jaguar days, a few years later. 🤷‍♂️

@bltxlettuce3444

6 ай бұрын

@@billkendrick1 Which is quite ironic considering they ran two very successful games on a Jaguar-based board, Area 51 runs on COJAG and I still see that around occasionally

@makaveli4205

6 ай бұрын

I still have my Atari 7800. The only thing I didn't like were the controllers. It had perfect arcade ports of games.

I rented Marble Madness once for the NES as a young boy. Remembering thinking it was fun but highly frustrating.

Never thought I'd see Parish and Barry McCockiner brand synergy

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

I don't know who that is!

The football players remind me of lode runner on nes.

Ball so hard Marble Madness gonna find me

I liked John Elway football. Although it was the only football game I had for the NES.

Marble Madness is great. 😀👍🎮

Elways qback had an unstoppable play. If you left the play call on reverse option and made a short pass to the RB behind the line of scrimmage, the player ran 100x faster than every other player. But, we still enjoyed it until we found Tecmo Bowl.

Marble Madness must have been ported to every system. I had the Amiga version, and it was great, I played the heck out of it. One of my all-time favorites. But I heard a rumor of a "Secret Race" that you could unlock somehow and i drove myself nuts trying to find it. I don't think it's in the Amiga port. 🤷‍♂️

10 Yard Fight or Flight response

Your content is great, it goes by so quickly, youd think it was a three minute video...

marble madness I'm sure I've played once or twice... probably played a lot more of the arcade game though via one of the compilations, where I suppose having analog controls helped a little bit. John Elway's Quarterback I do have some fond memories of, had a friend in Jr. high that was big on the sports stuff (and I think was from colorado? pretty sure they were big broncos fans, so not surprising that he owned that one) I mean it was okay. the best part was leaving the cursor on 'mirror plays' and your QB gets a turbo boost, haha it pretty much broke the game in what I'd imagine is the same way bo jackson did for tecmo bowl.

Marble Madness was a game my sister and myself both liked for NES. It is a pretty good 2 player game as well as 1 player. Wise's music is pretty good too. I have never played John Elway's Quarterback but yeah, worse than Tecmo Bowl and better than NFL Football sounds right. And more sports games next time, oh boy.

It's honestly weird to see direct arcade ports to the NES after we've had so many titles that were a lot more advanced than this. But hey, at least marble madness was a decent conversion. Which is more than I could say for quarterback, which is yet another game that makes Ultima 3 look like an appropriate 1989 release

i thing marble madness was the first "real game" i bought on a flee market for my fake NES Clone

I wanna be John Elway. Elway takes the snap and runs it in for a touchdown.! Thanks to Elway's patented last-second magic... the final score of Super Bowl XXX-- Denver, 7 San Francisco, 56. Whoo-hoo!

@SirJoelsuf1

6 ай бұрын

Is there a Secret Base video on that? Cuz there NEEDS to be.

What? Marble Madness actually has 6 stages? That damn Game Boy version lied to me!

👍

I remember renting Marble Madness and getting really pissed off while playing. It just wasnt my kind of game. I cant remember why i rented it.

@JeremyParish

5 ай бұрын

I think there was a law that required everyone to buy it or at least rent it once?

FWIW, the C64 port of Marble Madness inherits all the same traits and flaws of the NES release. There are three added wrinkles though. Atari-compatible joysticks of the time were nowhere near as precise as an NES d-pad, the game's framerate is much lower, and punishing disk load times for each level.

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

I bet the music Slapped, tho!

@pragmax

6 ай бұрын

@@JeremyParish Indeed it did. The 'ol Commodore has a lot of warts but the SID chip (usually) isn't one of them.

John Elway's QB was a totally busted game. First of all, if you did the "flip" option on a passing play, the defense wouldn't adjust, and just about everyone would be wide open. On top of that, there was a play, ironically called "Normal Play" where one of the receivers was about 10x faster than everyone else on the field and another was about 3x faster - flip the play and they'd automatically be wide open too. These two players were so fast, you could literally run circles around the entire field. If you really wanted to be a cheapass, you could just run one the one play, run around until the clock ran out, and then take it in for the TD and the win. Much as Tecmo Bowl and Super Tecmo Bowl were probably the most approachable and fun arcadey football games on the NES (maybe ever), NES Play Action Football was my favorite football game on the NES.

Why do you have two balls in your “classic wooden marble maze game”?

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

That's the uncastrated version of the game

I thought the marble madness port was good

@JeremyParish

6 ай бұрын

It's fine! I just wish the NES had a trackball!

In all seriousness once the original "Atari Inc." was split, it became TWO very DIFFERENT entities despite having the name "Atari" on it as Atari Games was not being payrolled by Atari Corp or vice versa so there was no obligation for Atari Games to join Atari Corp. On their arrogant path to self ruin by mistreatment of the videogame consumers the way Atari Corp did... (Atari 7800 and 2600 Jr in 1986 despite the former being BC with 2600 games and later in 1988 the Atari XEGS which they tried to claim was superior to the old NES while their ad mocked the NES as a toy and not a computer... see comparison ads will always fail, and Atari Lynx by 1989 or even 1990 and it's easy to see why those Atari owners either failed to stay or they turned to Nintendo or Sega or even NEC if they knew the thing existed) because they were different companies different management and different agendas. That said it is amazing that the old RARE handled Atari Games Marble Madness conversion to NES, that explains why it's as close to the arcade as it is despite lacking a track ball. On that note when the decision was made, it's obvious that the NES in North America had built up at least over ten million NES systems sold or more so game publishers and devs were looking for the chance of hitting a million if not multiple millions of cartridges sold. Meanwhile the Sega Master System (SMIII/SMS) was practically faded in Japan with NEC PC-ENGINE leaving it a distant third which is why Sega headquarters Japan went to make the Sega MegaDrive in 1988 and that too despite the power leap in hardware remained third place because most westerners don't understand how fierce the console wars in Japan were so while it seems to make sense to see Marble Madness for SMS there was no point in Japan and in the U.S. Sega of America's staff were always lackluster so they quickly forgot the SMS existed and only in Europe regions that game could make sense but again the dev would make a difference in how close to the arcade and the quality of the conversion and we can see that better revealed on the Sega Genesis with how Electronic Arts somehow got the license for Marble Madness and made a mess of a port that it took the Japanese Sega MegaDrive conversion handled by a completely different company and Japanese at that to make a much closer version that we ended up losing out on cause we were stuck with EA's version. Then again if Sega headquarters Japan had known there was a lot of interest in the old Marble Madness game, they could have secured the license and let someone like Yuji Naka or one of their internal dev teams, or Tose, etc to have handled the conversion on the Sega MegaDrive in the first two years and it might have been a huge hit to talk about back then... like if they had done the same with Renegade/Kunio Kun, Double Dragon and Double Dragon II but things moved fast instead. I always noticed that some of the older arcade smashes would be ignored from being prioritized like as if there was no interest in then even though the NES version and coverage by Nintendo Power Magazine proves that wrong.

Nintendo Power had an unenviable position in some ways. Despite their obvious pro-Nintendo bias, they couldn't just say that every game was great, because anyone who took them on their word would quickly form a very negative opinion of Nintendo.

The worst football game of all time.