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Just not a good game!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: December 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

As a veteran of the Super Monkey Ball games, I had high hopes for SMB:BB around system launch time. Hopes that were to be let down in the worst kind of way.

This game has to have the worst control of all the Wii launch titles. Using an analog stick to control a board was easy, but to use a motion sensing remote? Good idea in theory, terrible in practice. Some people may call this a "challenge," I think of it more a waste.

The mini games are the highlight, seeing as the main game is uncontrolable and generally bad. But that isn't saying much, as the mini games are tedious remakes of all the other mini game games out there (heck, even the Zelda: Twighlight Princess herding game was a heck of a lot better, and not even a "mini game!"

Do I recommend this game? Nope. Based off my experience with it, would I buy another Monkey Ball game? Only if it's analog controlled.

1/10 rating. Just bad.

not worth the money

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: December 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

finished the game in about 30-40 minutes, and the minigames lame, fortuantely I rented the game from blockbuster; still not sure I got my money's worth.

You'll get the hang of it... trust me.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When I first bought my Wii I was torn between what game to get along with Zelda: Twilight Princess. It came down to Rayman: Raving Rabbids and Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. Ultimately I went with the former and decided to make Monkey Ball a Gift Card post-Christmas purchase.

First off, the nunchuck is only used for certain mini-games (more on those later.) In the main "storyline" (read: had to throw something together so there'd be a reason for monkeys in balls racing around a track collecting bananas and slamming into gigantic monsters heads and belly buttons,) the controls are simple enough - the Wiimote acts as a sort of extention of the playing field. When you tilt the controller forward, the playing field tilts forward, sending your monkey-in-a-ball in said direction.

It took me awhile to get the hang of it, and I was partially thankful that I had sharpened my Wiimote teeth on other games so I could get used to the intricacies of the motion sensitivity. If you're not careful you could very easily send your poor monkey... ball... falling to his or her demise.

A nice behind the scenes feature of the control scheme, again for the main game, is that it's based on the actual controller movement, so you don't have to worry about jacking everything up because you moved out of the way of the sensor bar (or your cat jumped up on the coffee table... stupid cat.)

Gameplay wise, the pace is pretty tight, with very little in the way of lag time between finishing one level and moving on to the next. The gameplay mechanics actually are such that you have to force yourself to stay calm to make sure your moves are accurate, even though your monkey is bouncing around and ricocheting off things (stop laughing.)
You can choose between a variety of different characters, each of which have their own special abilities. It will be up to you to figure out which one to use in order to 100% a level.

The mini-games, at least for me, leave something to be desired. Yes, there are a ton of them. Yes, they offer a boat load of multi-player possibilities. Yes, I'm going to kill someone if another Wii game comes with some crap-tastic version of wack-a-mole. I'm still impressed Nintendo built full 3D controls into the Wii, but I'm not impressed with its use in the SMB:BB mini-games. While it can be cute (ex: playing a trombone, using the Wiimote as the slide,) it's extremely frustrating to get exact to the point where I just didn't feel like playing them. Good on paper, but lacking in real world product.

With around 100 levels of main game, SMB:BB is sure to offer you plenty of replayability. A solid buy for Wii owners.

Frustrating Fun!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Bought this game today and we've been enjoying it all day. We got through the first few worlds fairly quickly. Perhaps that's because we're used to the Wii remote especially in Mercury Meltdown which is a LOT more challenging than this game. Overall it's just really cute, nice music, cute levels, a bit frustrating, but very engaging. It's one of those games that I like to pop in after getting frustrated w/ adventure games like Prince of Persia or Tomb Raider. One star off for the mini games, we tried a few of them and they're not interesting and hard to control.

I love bananas!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 11
Date: November 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

All of the people who are bashing this game are obviously not used to a term called "new technology." The Wii is a new, different game system and therefore the games have to adapt. I'm tired of seeing people slaughtering the ratings for this game because Monkey Target just isn't the same as it was on GameCube. Well, there are 50 games. Over half of them are great. Stop whining about one game. If you like old school Monkey Ball the Story Mode is just as fun and challenging. Also, if you love mini-games this game is great and much better than Rayman (which I completed in less than 10 hours). So please, give the monkeys a chance!

What a waste!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I hate ripping items that I spent $50 bucks on, but I figure I need to do this as a public service. First off, I want to state that overall the games are boring. My family played this game on a Saturday night and honestly, none of us had a good time playing ANY of the games. That in itself is a bad thing when you are talking about an 8 year old and a 12 year old with two willing parents. When you are able to make a game where EVERYONE is bored, you should NOT be proud of yourself, but instead you should stick your head in a hole. I am upset that I plopped down my money for this game and I can promise you, I will NEVER purchase another Monkey Ball game again in the future. Do NOT waste your money.

...Frustrating Mini games...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought this because it got such great reviews.. I really liked the one for the Gamecube..

Man, this one is frustrating though. I like the single player campaign, but the minigames aren't very much fun, and that's the real reason I bought the game. I had a friend over to play it with me, since we both thought it would be as good as the GameCube version.. we started out with minigames and just got frustrated because they are so hard to control.. half the time the controllers just bug out.

I haven't had problems with controls in wii sports or Zelda, but SMB:BB is pretty rough... I wish I could take it back.

Also, what gives with the bogus reviews on this game? I don't know how anyone could go through those minigames and think that this game deserves the best rating.

I really am not trying to be harsh, but I felt like this game should be pretty simple and a lot of fun for a party, just like its predecessor, but I wouldn't want to get this game out for a group... everyone would want to leave. I'll stick with Zelda and Wii sports for now.

I'm glad I rented this first!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

After having rented this title, I am very glad I didn't spend $50 on it! Though the main game wasn't an entire failure, I felt that the mini-games were severely hampered by the counter-intuitive controls that usually fail to achieve intentions.

Controls in every 1st party games that I've played -- Excite Truck, Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Wii Sports -- have had controls that have been extremely intuitive, precise and manageable! And to now bare witness to such an utter catastrophe with a title that's had such a successful history is an outright shame and grave disappointment. I've heard, along with other 3rd party developers that had started developing for the Wii earlier on, the developers of this title didn't have the luxury of some Wiimote calibration program that developers supposedly have readily available now. If this is true, then I blame the failure of this game on the lack of such a resource. In fact, I hope this is the source of this game's failure, because at least then there is hope for VAST improvements in the next SMB Wii title.

To me, this first attempt at a SMB Wii title is more frustrating than enoyable -- especially when the CONCEPT of many mini-games seem like an ingenious and fun idea -- if only the controls were more intuitive and ACCURATE! I won't be purchasing this particular title, but I still have high hopes for a future IMPROVED SMB title for the Wii!

don't rent it; you'll end up smashing it to bits

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is limitless frustration. The controllers DO NOT work. Don't get caught in the trap... even if your Wii is set up perfectly this game will fail to work for you. The only possible explanation for this is that Sega thought you might need a hand getting your relatives to put down the Wii and help clean up during the holidays. Not that you'll really notice at first... it will take you hours just to make sense of the "instructions" for each mini game. You'd be better off if Sonic the Hedgehog personally screamed the instructions in your face. If by some strange twist of fate you manage to crack the Rosetta Stone visual directions, you'll be greeted by a stiff dose of boring gameplay; contests that are over in seconds, computer controlled "characters" that gang up on you without reason, and a handful of wrote mechanics that hardly pass off as gameplay.

Steer clear.

Grat Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have never played monkey ball before and was after reading some reviews, I wasn't going to purchase the game until I saw video of the game in action. The weakest part is the 50 games that are included, they only contain one level, but that is a mildly frustrating. The main game is very fun and colorful. I donlt know what the negative comments are about this game are. maybe some old uncoordinated people are complaining about it.

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