The original Super Monkey Ball, which launched along side of the Gamecube, was a breakthrough surprise hit. Super Monkey Ball, a game solely based around controlling monkeys in plastic balls, though having a robust, challenging, and extremely long single-player experience became huge because of its unique and amazingly addictive multiplayer game types. Having up to four players play simultaneously or taking turns while playing some truly clever games such as Monkey Target, Monkey Race, Monkey Bowling, and many others, was more fun then anyone would have imagined.
Less then a year later Sega did it again, bringing Super Monkey Ball 2 to the table, offering a plethora of over 140 single-player levels, which all went together in an amusing story mode, plus several all-new fantastic multiplayer game types, along with tweaking some of the old ones. The only complaint seemed to be the impossible difficulty and various levels that required more luck then skill. Besides releasing several handheld Super Monkey Ball games, we haven’t seen a console Super Monkey Ball game for around two and a half years now.
During this time PS2/Xbox exclusive gamers have had nothing but the shaft, which is truly a sad thing that all of these people haven’t been able to experience the greatness that is the Super Monkey Ball series. Well, this upcoming March 15th will change that. Sega is releasing Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (which I’ll call SMBD from now on) for the PS2 and Xbox. Sega is including all 250+ single-player levels included in the first two SMB games. On top of this they are giving us over 40 brand new levels tweaking some of the previous ones to make them involve more skill, and not just blind luck.
The story mode has you controlling one of four characters (GonGon, MeeMee, AiAi, and Baby) across many variations of environments from a desert, lava, water, and even the inside of a whale. The story mode goes through a process of worlds kind of like you would see in a Mario Bros. game, and also contains various cut-scenes. Each level gives you exactly 60 seconds, and has you going through a weird level design to try to finish and cross the goal line, throughout each level there are bananas that are spread out, getting these bananas will up your score. The Xbox version of SMBD hasn’t lost any of the charm or the sensitive touch that made the Gamecube games so great. Visually SMBD is on par with the first two SMB games in the very least, any improvements made to the Xbox version of the game at this point are too minute to be immediately noticeable. That said, the game looked great on Gamecube, so any improvements would merely be welcome bonuses to an already very pretty package.
For those who want things quicker, there’s a new Challenge Mode available where up to four players can compete on a series of progressively harder levels to see who can obtain the best time. Challenge Mode hands you a certain number of lives and continues as you try to get the highest score. This is perfect for playing with buddies, or just trying to improve upon your own high score. SMBD is filled with every multi-player game-mode from the first two, including all the classics like:
Monkey Fight: Puts four players on a small map, equipping each monkey with a gigantic glove. You can throw a normal punch, or charge up a punch to try to knock an opponent of the edge, which gives you points. There are also multiple power-ups.
Monkey Bowling: an average bowling game where you throw yourself down a lane to knock down pins. Nothing particularly special or innovative, but provides adequate enjoyment in a multiplayer scenario.
Monkey Target: A flight game where you control your flying monkey around and try to land on a target, grabbing banana rings for extra points along the way. But you have to watch out, as you can only stay in the air for a limited amount of time before you start to sink downwards.
Monkey Dogfight: In Monkey Dogfight you fly through the air, and try to shoot down opposing enemies. You have two types of fire, an unlimited machine gun, which does minimal damage, then you have rockets, which can lock on to enemies, and kills them after only several shots. However the rockets are limited, you start with only ten, and once you run out you must either strictly use the machine gun, or try to find extra ammo. You gain points by taking an enemy down.
Monkey Racing: this is one of my favorites. Monkey Racing plays somewhat like a Mario kart game would, having you race around very oddly shaped tracks (several of my favorites are in the shape of a heart, a banana, etc) while grabbing weapons that help you take down your opponent. On top of having all the racing tracks from the first two SMB games, there are going to be several new ones available in SMBD.
Monkey Golf: A very entertaining golf game with eighteen tracks ranging in difficulty. As you would expect, you hit yourself to try to make the hole. Monkey Golf uses a very nice interface having you trying to hit yourself with power and accuracy, which is done by multiple meters you must control. The game also gives you the option of around a dozen golf clubs, ranging from a fifteen feet putter to a two-hundred and fifty yard club. I’m not a golf fan by any means but Monkey Golf is very addictive, mainly because of the superb courses (18 in all).
On top of these there are around six other game types, including monkey soccer, baseball, billiards, plus a few others.
One sorely missing feature is Xbox Live functionality. This is very disappointing, as it would have been wonderful to be able to play people across the world, and some kind of online scoreboard would have really upped the lasting appeal, allowing people to try and best the records set by the very best around the planet. This is really the only major complaint however, and for the mere price of $30, considering the hundreds of levels and variety of game types, this is a title that fans of the SMB franchise should enjoy, and those who missed out on earlier entries in the franchise should give a look.
