Take Super Monkey Ball, give it a face lift, and destroy everything that made the franchise tight, fun and consistent.
Graphics: Well, here's a positive. The game shines through its cheerful and bright artstyle with some fantastic compensation for polygon count, with art. There are shiny ball effects (haha), nice lighting touches and smooth textures. However the character art isn't at nice as the monkeys look like dolls and have come straight from a wonky Japanese cartoon ad. Still, it's a very refreshing style, even if the Wii is capable of better
Sound: Another positive. This has the funkiest and best tunes (which dare I say help ease the frustration) I've heard in SMB game. The sound effects have been very 'samey' from pervious games but do hold up well enough here. Gameplay: Let's first move to single player. When you control the game swerves with the motion-sensing, but is so imprecise and wonky that you feel like you're in a lot less control with the monkey. It must be felt to be understood. It feels like the biggest chore to jump from one platform to the next, as its bloody hard enough to wrestle where you're rolling. Numerous times I've fell off the stage simple after landing a successful jump. Add increasingly (and cruel) level design and 'impossible to get' bonuses and you have.................well................a broken game. Ironic since it's the unique wii controls that have caused the trouble. Oh, and the credits play every ****** time you beat a world. AND YOU CAN'T SKIP THEM! This game sucks, why would I want to know what dudes screwed up every 30 minutes?
Now to multiplayer. There are some minigames that are fun and can actually be thoughorly enjoyed with multiplae people. However the majority will get old quickly due to either their incredibly shallow depth or awful controls. Some games are tight and offer frantic gameplay - while others are just a mess. If you're looking for a good first-gen game with your Wii, then please look elsewhere. There are much better party games than this on Wii, and much better Wii games, period. At least Rayman was playable.
+ Great visual and art style - some nice effects
+ Funky tunes and cute sounds
- Awful controls which are almost on the verge of being unplayable
- Short story (if you even make it that far) - lack of any great content
- Shallow, terribly inconsistent minigames
- Destroys most of the quality factors that make a good Monkey Ball game