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Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll
Can’t touch this… seriously.
Imagine a monkey locked up in a ball, rotating at full speed, making it’s way through the most difficult stages just to rush to the finish before time runs out. Sounds good doesn’t it? Sega published the first Super Monkey Ball game for the arcade and later made a port for the Nintendo Gamecube. The game had a fair succes and sequels were made.
Today we arrive at the Nintendo DS version of Super Monkey Ball. Will this game continue the succes of it’s predecessor or will it fail horribly? Continue reading to find out…
Gameplay
In SMB you have control over the platform, by moving the platform your monkey starts to roll. The goal of the game is to roll your monkey through the obstacles in the stages and get to the finish before time runs out. The first three levels are fairly easy, but the more levels you unlock, the harder it gets. You also get to collect bananas on the way to the finish. After collecting a certain amount of bananas you are awarded with an extra life.
There are two ways to control the platform in this game, the first and most obvious way is by using the touch screen. I would strongly advise you NOT to use it. Although it may work for the first few easy levels, it doesn’t work well at all for the harder levels.
The second way to control SMB is by using the D-pad. It does the job well, but again for the more complex levels it’s still not accurate enough for me. Both these ways to control the game are a huge down-factor.
The games also features six party games, you can either play them singleplayer or in multiplayer (4 persons max) with local WiFi. I’ll quickly describe three of them:
The first game is Monkey Race, a gimmicky touch screen controlled MarioKart ripoff wich is hard to control.
The fifth game is Monkey Wars, you run around in a maze trying to shoot the other monkeys, the controls are the worst ever you could use for a shooting game.
The sixth game is Monkey Mini Golf, one of the best party games in SMB. You aim in which direction you want your monkey to roll and then you swing the club with a chosen level of hardness in hope of reaching the goal.
GRAPHICS
SMB doesn’t really stand out for it’s graphics. The platforms have plain textures which look ok but the environment is mediocre at best. The ball and the monkey inside it are in 2D, which doesn’t make any sense because it looks like it totally doesn’t belong in the game.
The animations you see on screen in the ball are really bad. For example: when the ball is rolling at maximum speed then it looks like the monkey is jumping up and down at a really fast pace. Sega should have made a 3D ball with some nice animations that fit in with the rest of the game.
Sidenote: the graphical presentation of the menus where highly enjoyable...
SOUND
The music in previous versions of SMB was something which was smoothly played in the background. In the DS version of SMB the music is more dominating and a little irritating sometimes. There are songs that have a catchy tune the first time you here it, but later on it just gets annoying.
The ingame sounds like the rolling of your ball or the collecting of bananas are just the same as in previous versions, nothing special here either.
REPLAY VALUE
Well, you can replay the main game or play some party games with friends but it’s not even worth it.
CONCLUSION
Sega fails to deliver a good SMB game for the Nintendo DS. Don’t buy this unless you have too much money and want to complete your collection or if you are a hardcore Super Monkey Ball fan.
Presentation: 6/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 5/10
Replay Value: 3/10
Total: 4/10
Written by teh_raf3
Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll website:
http://www.sega.com/games/game_temp.php?game=smbtouchroll
Can’t touch this… seriously.
Imagine a monkey locked up in a ball, rotating at full speed, making it’s way through the most difficult stages just to rush to the finish before time runs out. Sounds good doesn’t it? Sega published the first Super Monkey Ball game for the arcade and later made a port for the Nintendo Gamecube. The game had a fair succes and sequels were made.
Today we arrive at the Nintendo DS version of Super Monkey Ball. Will this game continue the succes of it’s predecessor or will it fail horribly? Continue reading to find out…
Gameplay
In SMB you have control over the platform, by moving the platform your monkey starts to roll. The goal of the game is to roll your monkey through the obstacles in the stages and get to the finish before time runs out. The first three levels are fairly easy, but the more levels you unlock, the harder it gets. You also get to collect bananas on the way to the finish. After collecting a certain amount of bananas you are awarded with an extra life.
There are two ways to control the platform in this game, the first and most obvious way is by using the touch screen. I would strongly advise you NOT to use it. Although it may work for the first few easy levels, it doesn’t work well at all for the harder levels.
The second way to control SMB is by using the D-pad. It does the job well, but again for the more complex levels it’s still not accurate enough for me. Both these ways to control the game are a huge down-factor.
The games also features six party games, you can either play them singleplayer or in multiplayer (4 persons max) with local WiFi. I’ll quickly describe three of them:
The first game is Monkey Race, a gimmicky touch screen controlled MarioKart ripoff wich is hard to control.
The fifth game is Monkey Wars, you run around in a maze trying to shoot the other monkeys, the controls are the worst ever you could use for a shooting game.
The sixth game is Monkey Mini Golf, one of the best party games in SMB. You aim in which direction you want your monkey to roll and then you swing the club with a chosen level of hardness in hope of reaching the goal.
GRAPHICS
SMB doesn’t really stand out for it’s graphics. The platforms have plain textures which look ok but the environment is mediocre at best. The ball and the monkey inside it are in 2D, which doesn’t make any sense because it looks like it totally doesn’t belong in the game.
The animations you see on screen in the ball are really bad. For example: when the ball is rolling at maximum speed then it looks like the monkey is jumping up and down at a really fast pace. Sega should have made a 3D ball with some nice animations that fit in with the rest of the game.
Sidenote: the graphical presentation of the menus where highly enjoyable...
SOUND
The music in previous versions of SMB was something which was smoothly played in the background. In the DS version of SMB the music is more dominating and a little irritating sometimes. There are songs that have a catchy tune the first time you here it, but later on it just gets annoying.
The ingame sounds like the rolling of your ball or the collecting of bananas are just the same as in previous versions, nothing special here either.
REPLAY VALUE
Well, you can replay the main game or play some party games with friends but it’s not even worth it.
CONCLUSION
Sega fails to deliver a good SMB game for the Nintendo DS. Don’t buy this unless you have too much money and want to complete your collection or if you are a hardcore Super Monkey Ball fan.
Presentation: 6/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 5/10
Replay Value: 3/10
Total: 4/10
Written by teh_raf3
Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll website:
http://www.sega.com/games/game_temp.php?game=smbtouchroll
