Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz

I got this for the little monkeys in the balls!! And to be honest the main game is exactly what you expect, control the ball down a chute towards the end of level goal. The wii controls work well here, as you would expect with a game that in theory is about balancing. The main game is ok, but it doesn't stand out and shout that its there, my 6 year old always ended up at the mini games instead. Broken down into several mini-games,You can see that the idea was there but unfortunatly the exection didnt quite come through and mostly you'll get a lot of shouting as the controls don't act as expected. The novelty of the Wii is the sensor remotes and the ability to jump about to control the game, however Monkey Ball tends to react in unexpected ways to certain movements which can get annoying in a tight race or battle. Its a good little game for passing the time, but not as a long term gaming investment.

The aim of the game is to tilt the environment to make your monkey (who is contained inside a ball) roll to the end of the course. The courses are floating high in the sky, often without barriers which means the level must be carefully tilted to make sure your monkey doesn't plummet and lose a life. Along the way there are bananas to collect, and you are also under a time limit too. The time limits are usually fine, but there are the occasional courses which need to be done at speed. On each course there are some bananas within reach, and the rest in perilous positions. The game is very much suited to the Wii, given that the remote is perfect for tilting and the controls work extremely well. The first few levels are straight forward and are fun up to the fourth world where things start to get tricky, then after that it becomes a very frustrating experience. Personally, I think this game should be based on skill ie carefully tilting the environment to navigate tricky paths, but instead the game ends up relying on timing, speed and general luck, and often comes down to trial and error or prior knowledge of the course. An early frustration of mine was when I'm rolling along a guided path and the end is in sight, it looks like there isn't any need of any interaction, when all of a sudden, my monkey plummets downwards. Turns out there was a gap in the rails without any real warning or visual clue. In a similar fashion, the game introduces moving platforms. When you are rolling at high speeds and all of a sudden the path moves ahead of you, not even quick reactions can save you. I hated any course that encouraged speed; and there are many levels that are basically huge straights with ramps and speed boosts. Trouble is if you hit maximum speed, you often end up bouncing off the course, so you try to slow down to a steady speed, but then all of a sudden a ramp comes up and the game expects you to know that you had to hit it at maximum speed to make the jump. This is exactly what I mean when the game comes down to trial and error, and prior knowledge of the track. Also, I wanted to complete the game with the main character Aiai, but there was one level where you get to the end, and you hit the ramp with the speed boost, and go sailing way over the goal. After many attempts, I switched characters to Gongon, who has a larger and heavier ball and did the level first time. There are 8 main worlds (2 bonus worlds) which have 8 levels plus a boss battle. The early boss battles are fine, but the latter bosses are just like the levels and come down to trial and error to learn their movements. The graphics are very crisp and colourful, but the colour pallet seems a bit girly. Banana Blitz could have been a great game, but is too short and the terrible level design means it is just a frustrating experience.

We got this for our 10 year old Daughter who cant go on it for more than about 20 minutes at a time without throwing the remote down in frautration.

The mini Games most of the family found quite difficult to get used to and it didnt seem very entertaining as most of the time no-one really seemed to know what they were doing and when you did there didnt appear to be any or much skill needed for any of them. i Found it very Dull

And The most annoying music of any game i have come in contact with so far.

Unless you want a TV broken out of frustration, do not give this game to a child. Or adults for that matter. UNBELIEVABLY ANNOYING GAME!!!

After playing Monkey Ball for Gamecube on Wii we had high expectations for this but it was so much harder to control. My 6 year old gave up after 10 mins and game was sent back same day as we received it.