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Very Bad - Controller Detection is horrible

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: May 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is easily the worst game for the Wii. In many, many of the mini-games you can't even get it to pick up the movement of the controllers. What is really maddening is that Sega must have known that the game had serious flaws, but they shipped it anyway and knowingly ripped people off.

Avoid this one like the plague.

Not too shabby!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It's not the first game I'd pick up and play if I had never been exposed to the Wii, but I must say that the experience certainly isn't a bad one. Of course there isn't much depth to this game (as is the case with most "E" rated games), but there is one aspect of the game that kept it in my game library:

It reminds me a LOT of the old Marble Madness for NES. That was one of my favorite 8-bit games. Perhaps that is why I consider Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz to be a real gem.

You're basically guiding a ball through different obstacle courses. And believe me, some of the courses are no walk in the park! This game challenges even the steadiest of hands.

Give it a shot, and see how you like it.

Great for the family!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Ok, I had to make it 5-stars due to the lack of credit from the other reviews. Yes, this game has focused on the mini games and sacrificed on the details of the more popular games like Monkey Target (a game in which I love). Even to find only 10 games out of the 50 make up for it though. My wife does not play video games...that is until the WII, and SMB: Banana Blitz. She, myself, and our two sons had nothing but fun going through and finding all the games we liked. And yes, controlling some of the games can be frustrating at first, but with one or two tries you get use to it. All you have to do is give it a chance, and you'll love it! But if you are looking for the more challanging & detailed games like Monkey Target, you may want to look elsewhere.

Fantastic game if you give it an hour

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm a huge fan of the Monkey Ball series, and I was ready to give this game a very low score like many of the reviewers here did. As with anything that is unfamiliar, the controls take time to learn. That was especially frustrating for me because I had already mastered the past monkey ball games that used the standard joystick controller, but with this game I had to start from square one. If you spend the time it takes to learn the controls, you'll probably agree that the wii remote controls are more sensitive, accurate, and engaging than the traditional joystick setup. At times you will be sitting motionlessly while just tilting your wrist for parts that require surgical precision. But if you are like me, at times you'll end up swinging you arm in grand gestures just because you get caught up in the moment.
Apart from the controls, the visuals and music are fantastic. Nuff said, I want to keep this review short.
I do agree with others that criticize the party game aspect. Some are fun, but it's hit or miss. The developers obviously didn't spend as much time with this part. I give the game 5 stars entirely based on the main game.

Just decent

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A lot of the mini-games are fun but get old after a while. Much better to play with 3 or 4 players since the heat turns up a couple notches. Not too exciting when you're playing by yourself. Even 2 players might not be too exciting depending on the game.

Fun, but a little rough

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have really enjoyed playing this game, the parts of it that I have been able to play. The main game plays very smoothly and is of pretty high quality. However, I purchased it for the mini-games and they deliver a lack luster performance. It is not that the games are bad, they controls don't work well. I thought the wack-a-mole would be fun for my kids, but I can't even make it work consistently. I would say that about 70% of the mini-games are not playable. Let me qualify that... After giving them the ol' college try, I became frustrated with the erratic nature of the control scheme. Snow boarding is great along with some of the races. Maybe you will be more adept than I.

A Waste of the Nintendo Wii's Possibilities

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Okay, so I've played only a handful of games so far for the Wii. Unfortunately, I wasted time and money on this one. I, like many of the other reviewers, feel that it simply did not live up to it's possibilities.

The controls are my main complaint. It really doesn't register half of the movements you make in the mini games and that DOES get annoying. I believe that time and practice could make a few of the games playable, but, I need to emphasize A FEW.

The main game is okay, the controls are definitely better than the mini game portion. However, I wanted this game primarily for the 2-4 player capabilities. The main game did not justify the $50.00 purchase for me.

My overall impression and opinion is that this game needed more time in testing before they released it into the markets. I would "maybe" consider re-purchasing it for the main game when the price hits $20.00.

Difficult to pickup; Impossible to master

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In my opinion, most games should be easy to pickup and difficult to master. The problem with Banana Blitz is that it is ridiculously difficult just to start playing.

I didn't play the single player mode long because I really just got it for the multiplayer games. I did play through the first 8 missions and fought the boss though. It seemed very similar to SMB for the Gamecube I had played before, which is a good thing. It will take some practice to get comfortable using the Wiimote to control your monkey, but it's not too bad. Thankfully, you don't have to suffer through the "story" like in the last one...at least not to the point where I stopped playing the single player mode.

The multiplayer is really what I wanted. I have a lot of family members in and out over the holidays and wanted something to play outside of Wii Sports...so I got Rayman Raving Rabbids (RRR) and Super Monkey Ball (SMB). Although I wasn't thrilled with SMB, it does beat out RRR in almost every way with regards to the multiplayer games.

There are something like 50 multiplayer games. Many of them can be played by more than 2 players and none of the games have to be unlocked which is amazing!

We played almost all of the games. Some of them are awful and not worth a second look. Many had some great potential but fell short, including darts, disc golf, ring toss, a parachute game, and others. Why did they fall short you ask? Because it is unbelievably hard to play them.

Many other reviews have said how hard it is to control the actions in the games and they are exactly right. Many of the game's controls are just counter-intuitive. Something as simple as aiming where you want to throw or hit something should not be so difficult to do with the Wiimote. Wii Sports does it perfectly, Zelda is not a problem, and even RRR does it pretty well. The team that wrote SMB must not have understood how to use the Wiimote effectively yet. Hopefully the next version will fix a lot of the problems.

There are a few games such as snowboarding, monkey target, basketball, & slingshot that utilize the Wiimote better and these are quite fun with a few people. But, for the most part, I was disappointed how people couldn't just show up at my house and play. We kept switching back to Wii Sports and Excite Truck because everyone could play them without ever having to have played a video game before. They just make sense.

Pros:
Lots of mini-games that are already unlocked.
A few pretty good mini-games to compete with family & friends.
Single-player mode looks like it will be fun and your monkey can jump now.
No annoying storyline.

Cons:
Much too difficult to figure out how to play most of the games. Many of the games you will simply never understand how the controls work and give up on them.
Nunchuk in, Nunchuk out, Nunchuk in, Nunchuk out
Takes a lot of practice to learn to control your monkey in single player.

Overall:
Rent it first. It's an ok game since there are some mini-games that are worth playing. But not worth the current $50 price tag.

Best Monkey Ball to date

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I really like this game a lot. All these negative reviews must be from people who don't appreciate a series going new directions.

The control in this game is the best yet in any Monkey Ball Game, Similar to that of the DS version but much more accurate and incredibly quicker to pick up. Plus the boss battles are extremely fun, a Monkey Ball with boss battles was long overdue. There is 50 mini games with up to 4 players possible, but most of these are pretty bad. Only about 20 of them are worth playing and only about 10 - 15 of those are incredible.

I would shop around there are stores with this for $40 new, it is well worth that price.

Super Monkey not a Ball!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The teens love the Wii-but not this game. Zelda and The Raving Rabbids game much much better!

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