I want to start this review out stating that I am fully aware that there are many people out there who enjoy this game. I, however, am not one of them. I can't quite put my finger on what I don't like about it - oh wait; yes I can. Ei ei poo.

Wonderful Story Mode...

I started out playing Super Monkey Ball 2 in story mode. This involves four monkeys and a bad guy in a blimp - BADboon. The premise of the game is that you are this little monkey that speaks Japanese and you are encased in this clear ball and must roll through Labyrinth-like courses to reach a goal, while collecting bananas that BADboon has stolen from you. The levels start out really simple, basically rolling yourself across a bridge into the goal line. They, of course get progressively harder and you have to hop across mogul-like bumps and hurdle your monkey across moving conveyor belts. Each level consists of 10 courses that are arranged to look like pool balls in a cue. How cute. It took me about ten minutes to beat three levels. It is relatively easy to control your monkey ball, no difficult combinations, just simple moving of the joy stick. Oh yeah, I forgot the story. BADboon wants MeeMee, the girl monkey in the pink dress (how original) to marry him and she says "No way, sucker!" This makes him angry…blah blah blah. He laughs and the monkeys float in the air and chant "Ei ei poo! This is the magic song!" or something like that. Whatever they are saying, it's annoying. My question is this: if they can float in the air and chant, why do I have to roll it through all these courses? Can't I float to the goal? Anyway, back to the review…so the levels get harder and harder…and that's about it. Oh wait, they sing that song some more.

and the 3d Labyrinth

There are of course other aspects to this game that apparently make it more appealing. You can monkey bowl, play monkey billiards, monkey race, monkey fight, monkey golf, monkey shoot, monkey boat, monkey dogfight, and play monkey tennis, baseball, soccer, and target. I think I remembered them all. This is the area of the game that you can play multi-player. I did not play any of the games multi-player, so I can't really say if this makes this game any more fun. As far as the individual games go, only six of them are open until you go through and progress through story mode, which I have long since gotten annoyed with. Out of the six that I played I will just touch on two of them; monkey bowling and monkey target. Monkey bowling was hard. Too hard for me to enjoy. And frankly, if I want to go bowling I will get in my car and drive to the bowling alley. At least there I might actually have a chance of knocking over more than one pin. You had to aim, hit the speed and the spin just right to even have a chance of knocking any of the pins over - I needed bumpers. Monkey target also proved somewhat of a challenge for me until I figured out that I was supposed to open my ball and use it like a parachute. Once I figured that part out, I was fine. And I will admit I actually sort of enjoyed this one. Until I got a high score and had to use a gumball machine to enter my name. Right. Oh yeah and in monkey fight there is a magic flower ring.

Monkey Bowling

So, after wasting many a brain cell listening to the monkeys sing and having to knock monkeys off of a giant "magical" flower with boxing gloves I still just don't like it. And, no, I don't think that being drunk would have helped. This game is a lot like Fusion Frenzy (which I don't mind) but a lot, well, cheesier. It is like a little Japanese girl pitched the idea to her dad and he made it into a game and then made a sequel to that game (I still can't believe that there is a first one). If you like party games like Fusion Frenzy and can get past the fuzzy, happy magical nonsense then you might enjoy this game. My suggestion is rent it before you go out and buy it because I'd hate to say I told you so.

Rent this game

Monkey Target

Bad-Boon

How clever of you...

May 30, 2003 | 7 comments
Lauren Rasco