My first review for the iPhone was Hydro Tilt, and my hypothesis was that Marble Madness with the control scheme employed in Hydro Tilt could quite possibly be the perfect iPhone game.  It stands to reason, then, that with the absence of Marble Madness, Marble Worlds 2 could claim that throne.  MW2 has enemies – or at least an enemy, the evil marble.  MW2 has a larger variety of obstacles than Hydro Tilt.  And, Marble Worlds has 100 different levels to explore.  Sounds like a winner to me!

The First Level

Unfortunately, the control scheme kills this game.  The accelerometer is almost unmanageable, so you won’t be using that unless you’re in confined spaces or the game tells you that you have to.  Sadly, the touch screen controls aren’t much better.  Movement is relative to the marble, so as long as your finger is southwest of the marble’s position, the marble will move down and to the left.  This becomes especially problematic when the marble is in any sort of enclosure where you can’t see it.  Also, there are some obstacles that require precise movements, which are very hard to achieve with the sensitive controls.  They really need to tweak the sensitivity a bit, or better yet give the user the ability to adjust it, and I’d much rather see on-screen arrows to control movement than their current “relative” scheme.

Graphically the game isn’t bad, though there doesn’t appear to be much of a face lift from the Pocket PC counterpart.  The images are bright and colorful, but they have a bit of a legoland feel without much detail.  The sound effects are actually decent and sometimes amusing, though for the most part don’t fit in with the game (I keep hearing those frogs, but I never see them!)  Sadly, there is no music in the game.

As it stands right now, I can’t recommend this game.  If they could tighten up the controls quite a bit it would certainly make an acceptable replacement for Marble Madness, but with the controls’ current state I’ve given up after only 2 levels.

Final Verdict: Not Recommended
Developer Page: Marble Worlds 2
App Store Link: here