Super Monkey Ball (Iphone)
Super Frustration Ball (or is it?)
~-----------------------------------------------------------------------------~
So many review sites are giving Super Monkey Ball a score, anywhere from 4, to 6, to 10 out of 10, I have seen. I, on the other hand find this game an unscoreable game (at least overall). why? because it worse controls than, and is more frustrating than SuperMan 64, but it is also addicting and once you beat the levels that take you 25 tries to beat, you will probably want to keep playing. I am currently stuck on Level 43 (out of a little over 100 levels), and after I probably beat it after a week of trying, you can bet ill be playing to level 60-70, where I will probably be stumped again.

The Purpose of Super Monkey Ball is to guide a little monkey (who is in a ball), to a big glowing blue finish line. Why? we may never know. One of the first things I picked up on though is that you are not tilting the monkey itself, you are tilting the world around the monkey. The level layout varies a lot, from what I have seen, and none of the levels are boring, or the same as all the others. I am 43 levels in and they just introduced 2 new gameplay mechanics that I have never seen before (the whole ground moving like a jigsaw puzzle, and panels that flip upside down), which is great in a game with over 100 levels, because I am almost sure the level designs wont become repetitive or boring. I have encountered two levels so far that are almost identical, but that is the only repetitive level I have seen so far.

The difficulty scaling in Super Monkey Ball has absolutely no rhyme or reason. the Easy levels are usually harder than the Hard levels, and a most of the levels between 20-40 are easier than level 9 (that was a pain in the ass level). You have 60 seconds to complete each level, no matter how long or short it is, and once your down to 12 seconds left, ever 2 seconds "HURRY UP!" will flash across the middle of the screen in huge red bolded letters, accompanied by an annoying voice. This can be frustrating during the last few critical seconds of a level, especially if your view is obstructed by the huge letters that cover almost 1/4th of the screen.

The controls are VERY sensitive, which is the first thing everyone will tell you about the game. they are annoying most of the time, and I hope that Sega releases a patch for the game to tone down the sensitivity a bit, or allow you to change the sensitivity (App Store applications and Games can be updated and patched, which is a huge plus). I tilted my Ipod Touch just a tad too much and I kid you not, my monkey went rolling the wrong way at 300mph (there is a little mph counter on the screen).

I have wanted to break my Ipod Touch on at least 5 occasions while playing this game, and the controls are horrible most of the time, so why don't I condemn this game as horrible? When your not on a horribly frustrating level, the game is actually pretty fun, and fun to play when your bored or just sitting around (like in the waiting room of a doctors office). The game only lets you save every 10 levels, so if you don't play the game all the time, and just do 10 levels every 2 days, the game will keep you occupied for over two weeks, assuming you can complete it, and assuming you don't hate the game to death.

The audio is simple, and very unmemorable, but its the iphone, i'll bet you have some music on it to play instead of listening to the in-game music (if you don't have any music, your using your ipod/iphone wrong). The graphics on the other hand, and pretty impressive for the iphone/ipod touch. I never thought I would see 3d games on a mobile phone that looked so good, and this is a launch game so the graphics will probably get even better months down the line. It's somewhere between DS and PSP graphics, much closer to the PSP side though.

~----------FINAL VERDICT----------~
If a friend has this game, play the first 10 levels. if you beat level 9 and don't hate it to death or give it up at that point, you'll probably like the rest. If you do hate it at that point, you will despise the rest because it does NOT get better. If you can't try the game out before you buy it, its personal preference on wether or not to buy it. If you have $10 to waste/spend, go for it, but theres only a 50/50 chance of you liking the game, so if your not sure about it, it would probably be best not to buy.

CONTROLS: 3/10
GAMEPLAY:6/10
AUDIO: 3/10
VISUALS: 8/10
~-----------------------------------------------------------------------------~

~We don't want to believe that the world can still move on.
~We don't want to believe that the sun can still shine on.