Marble Blast Ultra - Xbox Live Arcade review

In the long history of video games, the act of frantically rolling balls around multileveled tangles of track has a proven appeal. From Marble Madness to Super Monkey Ball, navigating your orb through a ridiculous obstacle course in record time is the pinnacle of arcade satisfaction. Marble Blast Ultra is the high definition realization of this time-honored concept.

A decent single-player game, MBU presents a challenging 60-level campaign to test your stick-twiddling thumbs. Rolling your marble through the tutorials will give you all the knowledge you need to master a wide variety of special maneuvers. Super-jump, super-speed, mega-marble (beefs your marble up to super-size) and the game's namesake marble blast (an explosion you can trigger to boost your jump or devastate other rollers) deliver enough of a twist on the old-school roll-around game to keep you interested.