Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz

Here's a Wii game I've had as long as the Wii itself. For those of you not in the know, the Super Monkey Ball franchise is one that consists entirely of navigating a ball-enclosed monkey through a series of, for lack of a better phrase, obstacle courses. Many are fun and many are tedious, but all can be completed in a minute or two. This game consisted of 64 levels (eight each in eight different worlds) and, for the first time ever, boss battles. I feel the same way about boss battles in Monkey Ball as I did about boss battles in Mario Party DS - no real issues with it, but what's the point? I own two Super Monkey Ball games on the GameCube and one on the DS. The DS one is terrible. It has a woeful stylus-based control scheme that has you apply spin to the ball on the lower screen while navigating the top screen. The two Cube games are, naturally, controller-based. I have to say, I think the Wii remote made for a fantastic control scheme here. Simply using it like an angled joystick allowed for very precise and tight mechanics. This surprised me, as plenty of Wii games are shitty merely because of the Wii remote. It was nice to see a game that took advantage of the "Wii-mote" the right way. The camera, sadly, could have used much more work. It does its "best" to remain behind you in an over the shoulder manner, but naturally, as a ball begins to spin and roll, behind becomes a relative term. I suppose I don't have an idea that would have worked better than the one implemented in the game, but suffice it to say there were numerous times (on certain levels, in particular) where I was doing my damnedest to move my globular primate in one direction, but no matter how much I twisted and convulsed my wrist, it would only get sent the other way. The Monkey Ball series is certainly a niche one, and I'm not about to recommend this game to everybody out there, but you can't really go wrong with it either. If you're looking for something different, it's definitely at least worth considering. But then, so are so many other games. And if you're not careful, you could end up with 59 unfinished games on your shelves. At least now I'm back below 60. Fifty or bust!