Nintendo DS

Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll

Super Monkey Ball Touch and Roll pretty much gives us what we expected; a fairly accomplished Monkey Ball game for the DS which finally brings the little monkeys to handheld on the new generation consoles. The developers have done an excellent job bringing the game to a system with less power and fans of the series will obviously pick this one up, but it’s also an excellent introduction to the crazy world of the super monkeys for new comers.

Super Monkey Ball is one of those true love-it-or-hate-it series. It is incredibly simple in almost every way and uses this simplicity to create an addictive experience – if you can get into it enough to figure out the often infuriatingly difficult puzzles. Super Monkey Ball: Touch and Roll takes this tradition and makes it portable for the second time (the first, Super Monkey Ball Advance, being a poor simulation of the original), succeeding in every way that the first failed and making perhaps the most fun iteration of the series yet.

Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll is not a new concept, but it has so much going for it that if you’ve never played Monkey Ball before, the DS version is a great place to start. If you love quirky, concept games like Katamari Damacy, you will love this game. If you get tired of the single-player action, there are 6 other games to entertain you – it’s like 7 solid games for the price of one.

With 50 new levels, 50 favorites from the past, some cool new minigames, like the FPS Monkey War and a version of air hockey, plus single-cart multiplayer, this is yet another nice addition to the DS library.

Super Monkey Ball erinnert mich an diese Spielzeuglabyrinthe, in denen man eine Kugel ins Zielfeld geleiten muss. Dabei erfordert Segas Affenschubserei ein nicht minder ruhiges Händchen. Polygon für Polygon lotse ich Aiai an den Hindernissen vorbei, während der Stylus sanft über den Bildschirm streift. Im nächsten Augenblick klingelt das Telefon, ich schrecke auf ... und vermassele mir damit den Zieleinlauf. Der Touchscreen setzt die Bewegungen extrem präzise um und sticht in dieser Hinsicht die digital zu steuernde Game-Boy-Version aus. Auch die Minispielchen und der große Umfang machen Touch & Roll zu einem Fest für Feinmotoriker. Wenn nur der Geduldsfaden reißfester wäre!

Jep, der Kullerzoo ist wieder da: Touch & Roll bietet nichts Neues, dafür bewährte Qualität in Kombination mit einer feinen, wenn auch etwas gewöhnungbedürftigen Touchpad-Steuerung. Der rabiat hin und her springende Schwierigkeitsgrad ist nicht jedermanns Sache, dem kirreputzigen Äußeren zum Trotz ist auch diese SMB-Inkarnation eher etwas für den frustresistenten Affenscheucher. Und eine hohe Verrücktheitsgrenze sollte er auch haben: Musik und Grafikdesign sind wieder sehr abgefahren, selbst die Credits sind in ein Bananen-Sammelspiel eingebunden. Ein schöner Spaß, auch und gerade in der Gruppe – auch wenn ich persönlich sauer bin, dass das Segelfliegen aus der Partyspiel-Liste gestrichen wurde.

Visually, Touch & Roll is pretty basic. The levels contain a few specific color schemes and the backgrounds are so stark that I didn't really notice them. The music is pretty cute, but overall, none of the production values really stood out. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I didn't care much about what Monkey Ball looked or sounded like because the gameplay and control concept is so original on its own. Touch & Roll is a good package for Monkey Ball fans or newbies like myself, but it's nothing too fancy. It's basically just the same thing you've enjoyed for years in a handheld format (a first, unless you owned a N-Gage or played the GBA), but there's nothing wrong with that.

Sega's Super Monkey Ball launched alongside the GameCube in 2001. Alongside a quirky platforming sidestory (Luigi's Mansion), an intense Star Wars game (Rogue Leader), and just preceding a masterpiece of a fighting game (Super Smash Bros. Melee), Monkey Ball rounded off an excellent starting lineup with its tense, challenging puzzle gameplay topped with a load of playful charm. It was almost like a 3D update of the classic Marble Madness, except with monkeys trapped in glass balls out to collect as many bananas as possible.

Touch ‘n Roll suffers from trying to shoe-horn in features just to make use of them. You’d think after Ridge Racer DS developers would learn to avoid doing that, and yet here we are about a year and a half after that came out with the latest example in what not to do for a DS game. Due to all of its problems, it’s impossible to recommend this for a full-price purchase. If you see it on sale for $15 or so, give it a shot. It’s certainly worth your time if you‘re an SMB fan, it just isn’t worth a whole lot of your cash.

Sega's inimitable chirping monkeys are back at it again, this time in portable form for the Nintendo DS in Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll. The game rolls over very familiar territory for those who are familiar with the earlier games, released on various consoles. Unfortunately, the game may feel a little too familiar as many of the stages are lifted right out of previous games, and the touch-screen control can be a little awkward to adjust to, so you'll likely find yourself falling back on the D pad to control your monkey.

The introduction of Super Monkey Ball to the arcades and, for most people, the GameCube system brought back some extremely enjoyable old-school-inspired gameplay to the scene. Though the idea of monkeys thriving inside sealed clear plastic spheres may have been an original concept, its "roll them around an environment" idea was not - Atari's Marble Madness did this more than a decade and a half before Sega's Amusement Visions team's production. But it was how far the team took the whole "monkey in a ball" idea that made the series flourish in not just a pair of arcade/console games as well as a brilliant Game Boy Advance production and countless ports to the mobile platform. The Nintendo DS version is a revival of much of this concept, but the execution is a bit underwhelming because it does nothing special, and in many cases it's a step backwards from the style that made the series stand out from the crowd.

The microscopic muscle movements of your hand are the difference between making it and falling. It's nerve destroying, and if you're a masochist like me, you'll want to play it until your eyeballs explode from frustration.

Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll is disappointing. The disappointment stems not from the games content, although most of the party games could have been better, but from the inadequate touch screen control. The touch screen control just isn't good enough and the chances are that for the main game levels you'll opt to use the directional pad as it's a better method of control (although still not as good as a proper analogue stick). If you're a dedicated Super Monkey Ball fan you might appreciate what the game has to offer but the game is nowhere near as satisfying as either Super Monkey Ball or its sequel that appeared on the GameCube.

Ce premier jeu de la série des Super Monkey Ball à paraître sur DS est plutôt sympathique et aurait même pu atteindre le niveau de ses homologues sur consoles de salon, dont il reprend une grande partie des épreuves, si seulement le gameplay n'avait pas été aussi maltraité à cause de l'utilisation de l'écran tactile. Dans certains mini-jeux, cela ne s'imposait vraiment pas et ça nuit au titre plus que cela ne le sert. Du coup, l'intérêt des épreuves concernées baisse considérablement et on a moins de plaisir à y passer des heures ce qui, par la même occasion, fait chuter la durée de vie. Reste néanmoins un petit jeu sympa mais surtout pas un hit.

Sega seems to have hit on a winning formula with their Super Monkey Ball series. Originally appearing in arcades and then quickly morphing into a GameCube release, the monkeys-in-balls have made subsequent appearances on every major platform this generation including the GBA, the PS2 and the Xbox. A PSP rendition is in the works for the end of the summer and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz was one of the first games announced for the Wii. So it was with a sad monkey face when I came to the conclusion that the first Monkey Ball game on the DS, Touch & Roll, was not more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

There are many things in this world that furiously anger the Senor. Sour milk, crying children, parking authorities; all of them make me madder than a caged chupacabra, but lazy videogame design is also right up there and unfortunately, Sega's Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll suffers from this affliction. What could've been one of the DS' flagship games, yet another feather in Nintendo's money hat, is instead a sloppily designed title that doesn't make Sega or its friends look like kings but paupers. Paupers I say! Paupers...INDEED!

Sega had a good thing on its hands when it released the original Monkey Ball in arcades back in 2000. Here was a game that was cute, silly, and simple to play. It was also extremely challenging and wildly addictive. The banana shaped controller didn't hurt either. Of course, most people first heard of the game when it was ported to GameCube the next year as Super Monkey Ball. The home port may have lost the novelty controller, but the gameplay was all there. Sega had even tacked on a variety of excellent multiplayer mini-games that were almost as good as the main game.

You'd think that Super Monkey Ball would translate well to the Nintendo DS. Monkey Ball is a series built on simplicity and it appeals to all age groups, but the control scheme used in Touch & Roll simply isn't good enough. Kids won't be able to put up with the loose controls, and adults who have the patience to persevere will probably have better things to do. Sadly, Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll is a big missed opportunity.

If you’re expecting a handheld version comparative to the console classic, you’ll be sorely disappointed. If you’re getting this purely for the minigames, then you’re probably going to get a few multiplayer kicks (and can maybe add a point or two to the head score). But at thirty notes, and with Mario Kart on the market and Metroid Hunters around the corner providing far superior examples of competitive gaming, Touch and Roll can’t really be recommended to anyone but the most ardent chimp fan, see.