Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz Review (WII)

MONKEY BALL GOES BANANAS…and then loses his friends…

When it comes to weird ideas for video games, the ‘Super Monkey Ball’ series certainly manages to justify itself a place in our minds. When the idea of controlling an airtight hamster ball consisting of a fully clothed primate across brightly coloured boards towards a goal that will only elevate them high in the air and onto another brightly coloured board to repeat the process, a few gamers wondered if there was something special in the water at the Sega offices. Yet once we set our grubby hands and sceptical eyes on the first game, we fell in love with its undeniable wackiness and charming simplicity that still managed to provoke moments of ape tension.

After several sequels which were virtually clones of the original, however, the series began to lose its charm. Soon the act of trapping primates in balls to cater for our amusement became an everyday occurrence in the gaming world. It didn’t seem that the series had a lot more to offer us, yet Sega seemed to think that they could save this from becoming a dead horse of a franchise.

And so ‘Banana Blitz’ comes hurtling towards the Wii. The Story Mode doesn’t consist of A-list written material, but if you expect a game of this cute standard to feature incredible plot twists then you must set your standards of Disney films incredibly high. To put it simply, some Pirate Monkey steals golden bananas, signature group of monkeys decide to get them back by rolling around a bit. The story mode consists of 100 levels and, although most would feel that the sheer amount of ball bouncing you’d be doing would beckon repetitive gameplay, each consist of enough varying challenges to keep you playing. Due to the new control scheme, the first few levels are fairly basic in order to allow newcomers and veterans to get used to the Wii Remote. Yet later on, the traditional complex obstacles and notorious level design produce constant butt-clenching tense moments of dangling on the edge of a course, a hairs breadth away from falling into monkey hell.

Previous games only ever consisted of using the joystick to move and, if you were lucky, another stick to control the camera. Although it doesn’t sound like much, it’s this simplicity which made the game so

notorious level design produce constant butt-clenching tense moments

addictive and allowed players of any calibre to jump in with a ‘no nonsense’ approach. For the Wii installment, however, the Wii Remote replaces the joystick and must be tilted around. As you tilt the Remote, the level tilts in the same direction, allowing your monkey mascot to roll around. Prepare for some incredible cramps in your wrist as you attempt to navigate mazes whilst giving your forearms a complex workout with this new method. Yet when you stick with it for over an hour, it soon becomes second nature to you and even more enjoyable than before. You can also jump now… which is good…

The graphics are as bright and colourful as ever, yet everything has been polished and rendered to perfection. Each of the 10 worlds are made graphically unique and charming, and the bright colours aren’t piled on so much that your eyeballs begin to melt. Music can begin to get on your nerves after a good couple of levels yet fits in with the whole cutesy atmosphere and won’t deter any sugar fuelled toddler from loving it.

For me, however, the most important part of a SMB game has always been the multi-player. Previous installments featured Challenge Mode, where 4 players could run through the main game levels competing in a race of endurance and skill to gain the highest score possible. Banana Blitz, however, does not feature this, and in turn, loses a lot of what made the games so special. Single player was always fun but playing those simple levels against friends and the whole game showed a whole new element. Without this, story mode just seems too linear, and nothing persuades you to replay it.

The reasons for Challenge Mode’s mysterious absence may be due to the work that has been put into the 50 mini-games. Although some of these games are prime examples of how the hardware should be used in relation to party games in general, a majority are pure cannon fodder. Previous classic mini-games such as Monkey Target and Monkey Bowling have had so many features taken away from them it feels like Sega spell development backwards.

Other mini-games suffer from attempting to use several different control schemes that fail to do them justice, and in others the controls are simply unresponsive. Due to the praise story mode received for its intuitive controls, the simple explanation is that all these mini-games were clearly rushed and not given enough attention during the development process.

Despite breathing new life into the series, Sega has ultimately stumbled by forgetting the old saying ‘Quality over quantity’. The story mode will give players a quick blast of excitement and marks a brilliant return to form, yet doesn’t do enough to justify a replay. Of course, multi-player is my main gripe, however, and it’s a shame it had to fail so miserably as it has always been the cream on the cake, whereas now it’s the ants in the apple pie.