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"THE greatest Marble Madness clone EVER"

The Commodore 64 was such a pioneering system. It was a system full of original games (in both senses), hacks, clones, and just general chaos that; if the system never existed, we would not be where we are today.

Gyroscope 2 is hands down one of the greatest games of its time. An obvious clone of Marble Madness, it succeeded on many levels.

Gameplay: amazing, even with an old Atari 2600 joystick and no trackball. Offhand I can't remember how many levels there were, but then again Marble Madness never had many, either (even the arcade version). There aren't nearly as many trap doors and such, but the maze designs are great.

Sound: ONE OF THE GREATEST PIECES EVER ON THE C64!!! Seriously, it's up there with the theme from Bruce Lee! Go to Overclocked Remix and download some C64 stuff, or at least search for some midis! The music alone, even though it's only one song, is what made me come back.

Graphics: GOOD. There's something spectacular of the whole oblong shaped, blocky graphics of the C64... It's like watching an old kung-fu flick on acid. Actually, the music is a bit Kung-Fuish, too! There are no actual sound effects, but actually I think that's a good thing. You see, the way games back in the day worked is that certain instruments of the soundtrack would have to drop out in order for sound effects to kick in, then they'd return (go play an old Mario game, or A Boy And His Blob to see... er, hear). While Marble Madness relies solely on sound effects, Gyroscope 2 relies solely on the soundtrack. No dropouts. It's a good thing. The coolest thing is that the game has a slowdown while it starts the next maze, and the tempo slows down... and it sounds cool no matter where in the song it happens. Seriously, you need to hear this.

Extras: like all C64 games, there was a buncha nifty options when you pressed the function keys...

Well, I guess I can't say anything about story... there isn't any... I think...

Basically, this game is incredible. I seriously don't know what else to say. I guess my only gripe, besides the loading time of the C64 disk drive, is that there weren't more games of this ''genre'' (besides Spindizzy Worlds and that upcoming PS2 game...). The ball-in-maze concept is awesome when done properly, and this is definately one of them.


Reviewer's Score: 10/10 | Originally Posted: 07/31/03, Updated 07/31/03