Super Monkey Ball Game Play Review

With the App Store launch today, we spent the entire day browsing through the entire collection of apps, reviewing, analyzing, and critiquing them.

We decided to take a little break and install Sega’s Super Monkey Ball.

That being said, check out the sample video and screenshots below.

There are several modes to choose from: Main Game, Instant Play, Practice, Rankings, Options

When you select the Main Game mode you will have an option to select level difficulty.  As you can tell the Difficult level needs to be unlocked.

The goal of the game is very simple (but it ain’t easy).

You have to guide the monkey ball into the portal in order to complete the level.
The accelerometer based tilting controls aren’t easy, but with practice, you can master them.

You need to press the timer in order to pause the game.

Watch your speed and the height of the barriers around you.  One wrong move and you’re done.  FALL OUT!

The "Ranking" mode. You have the choice to unlock stages.

Multiple people can record their scores.

Gotta love the credits. Super Monkey Ball took over 100 people to create.

Game Play Video

First of all – this game is fun. You’ll genuinely enjoy playing it. But remember, it ain’t easy. There are _ worlds.  We only got about 7 levels deep into the first world.

The functionality is great, and the accelerometer is on point. What else would you expect, this was a 106 person project directed by Sega.

So, the question remains, is it worth $10.59 (tax included)?

Definitely.

Some notes:
1. Graphics are better then expected. We were impressed by the quality of rendering.
2. The music is a standard SEGA production. In other words, it’ll be stuck in your head for weeks.
3. If you press the power button while playing the game, the music and game will stop and the screen will turn black. However, the game is still consuming resources in the background. We let the iPhone sit like this for a few hours and the battery died in a few hours (and the phone became really hot).  So if you wanna quit, first press Home, then press the Power button.
4. The controls are innovative and fun, but not easy.  Screen reflection can be a problem since you have to tilt your iPhone, but it’s not a big deal.
5. The game easily provides atleast 10 hours of gameplay.

Updates on different tricks and worlds are coming soon.