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Video Hall of Fame, Category 2 Winner and new category

mm2.jpgWe have a clear winner in the Coin-Op Trackball category. Congratulations to Marble Madness.

I always loved the idea of Marble Madness but I couldn't play for more than five minutes. As soon as my marble went over the edge and into oblivion, I would get a sudden attack of vertigo. Yes, my fear of heights transcended into video games. Sad, I know.

Coming up later - most likely in the afternoon - will the Best of the Rest category, featuring all the other Coin-Op games in a death match battle. There's still time to make your nominations (see the others there). Just remember that we are honoring old school games, pre-Playstation. So anything coin-op before 1994 (but not vector or trackball games, because they've already had their moment) is good for this category.

Comments

WOW, Marble Madness. I forgot about that one. I used to spend hours playing that one. Great game.

Marble Madness? Over centipede? I've never even heard of Marble Madness, and I was a 12-year-old when Astroids ruled the world.

I've been a trackball addict for quite a while. Marble madness is certainly the "most well suited to trackball" game if there ever was...a singlualar correlation of tactile to virtual reality.

One of the things I adored about Marble Madness was the sense that it gave you of being in some completely alien universe. Many games give no sense of transport at all; e.g., playing Asteroids didn't, like, feel like being in outer space. The only other game from (roughly) that period that did that was Battlezone -- it provided a visceral quality of being somewhere totally out of this world.

(It is of course relevant that MM was totally, well, awesome.)

MM was unique, I suppose... but rather boring, really. I don't think I could play a game with only five different levels any more. Guess I'm spoiled by the multimedia extraveganzas available today.

I can't believe Atari Football got so few votes. It was simple, but it was multiplayer. Guess there were just too many bad memories of crushed fingers in the voting public.

Oh, yeah!!! Marble Madness! But you have to own the actual arcade machine to have something good - the home versions don't make it, yah know?

Tatterdemalian: It only had 5 levels? I never got far enough to find out, but that's quite a disappointment.

Six levels (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Aerial, Silly, Ultimate). The silly level was the one where the ball automatically rolled UP a hill, leading to retrovertigo.