SMB T&R - Better than expected.
I am a complete Super Monkey Ball addict! I'll openly admit this and was put off by the review on gamespot but couldn't stop myself buying the game. The first thing you'll notice is the weird initial splash screen ask you to touch to begin which is a monkey shaking it's rear at the screen. Okay, enough on that then.
The main game is the same old Monkey Ball with some of the levels carrying over from the console games. Most of the leves are fairly easy. The touch screen controls do work well (in spite of some reviews to the contrary) . The touch screen is essentially one huge analog stick. You move the stylus to the top to make the ball go forward, back toward you to go back and left and right to go left and right. This control system is great for staying on curved narrow ledges but fails when you have right angled turns to make I found. The solution to this is to switch to the d-pad controls for these levels. By moving between both control schemes the game becomes a lot of fun.
Mini games. Unfortunately you have to use the touchscreen in mini-games. There are new mini-games added and some of the old ones. Monkey fighting is still here but I never like that myself. It's very similar to the console version in monkey ball 2. Monkey racing is also still here and is just as much fun as the console version except the touch screen controls can be annoying at times.
Monkey bowling is here but has changed. There is no special mode!! It has changed to challenge mode in which you have to knock pins laid out in such a manner that they are hard to knock down. This is reasonably good fun and the touch screen controls make the bowling more like bowling in my opinion. Monkey golf has become monkey mini-golf. This is brillant, one of the best things in the game if you like mini-golf games (like the flash ones you get online).
Then you have monkey hockey. I don't like this at all. It seems like something that should work with the touch screen but I found that sometimes it seems to just start acting like your not touching the handle at all when your playing. The original twist on hockey is reasonable but again not great. There is also a 3d maze, FPS style game (not really). I found this to be a complete disaster.
The absence of monkey target is noticable!
Other than the few snags with the controls, the odd change for the worse in mini-games and the absence of monkey target, this is the same old lovable monkey ball. It's monkey ball on the go, so go get it.