HomeTGE Review - Super Monkey Ball 2
TGE Review - Super Monkey Ball 2
by King Slazo on Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:53 pm
Dear god, I must be bored. 
Ah well, first review in half a year or so, here goes nothing...
Name - Super Monkey Ball 2
Platform - Gamecube
Release Date - March 14th 2003
Players - 1 to 4
Publisher - Sega
Developer - Amusement Vision
The ball rolling genre, for want of a better name, has always been a particular favourite of mine. Monkey Ball, Marble Blast, Mercury, Katamari Damacy, I've played, and loved, them all. And so its hardly surprizing that almost 6 years on, I still fire this up every now and again for a good old laugh, and cry, as I try to conquer fucking Master mode.
The goal, for those of you who haven't played one of the 8 or so games in the series, is simple. Get your monkey in a ball from the start to the goal, in 60 seconds, without falling off the stage. Sounds simple. And for the most part, it is. The "controls" involve you just tilting the analogue stick to tilt the stage respectivly. Tilting it foward makes your monkey roll foward, slanting to the left makes him (or her) roll to the left, and so on. Its a basic system, but one that works brilliantly, with no complications of jumps or powerups.
And there are plenty of stages to complete, over 150 are tucked away in the game, some as easy as rolling straight fowards, some as hard as to make your soul cry. There are two ways to play the main game. The first is Story Mode, which involves time-travelling villans and babies and loads of other stuff that tries to explain monkeys rolling about in balls, and fails horribly. There are 10 worlds, with 10 stages in each, all of which you have to clear. The good news is that you have infinite attempts, and are rewarded with a cutscene between each world.
The other mode is Challenge Mode, which is far more like Super Monkey Ball 1, except much easier, as pretty much every levels from Story Mode's worlds 1 through 9 being used at some point in Beginner, Advanced and Expert. The differences here being that you can select your monkey out of Aiai, Meemee, Baby and Gongon (you're forced to play as Aiai in Story Mode), and that you have a limited number of lives, and if you fail, its back to the start. Of course, if you manage to collect 100 of the bananas lying around the levels, you'll get an extra live, a godsend when you first start playing. Sure, you can use a continue to carry on where you left off, but if you're forced to use one of those you can't access the Extra levels, 10 challenging levels which demand much more precision and skill. You'll also encounter Bonus Stages littered with bananas, which don't have much point here, seeing as there's a goal in them, rather than forcing you to go for bananas ala most other Monkey Balls. If by some miracle you batter your way through Expert and Expert Extra, then the hellish Master is unlocked for play, and if you beat that (an achievement I've never accomplished), then Master Extra awaits.
The good news is that once you've played a stage, you can replay it over and over again in Practise Mode until you've got it down pat. And talking of replays, you can save your favourite runs of levels, to guide or impress others.
Dear lord I've babbled on a lot, and I haven't even started talking about Party Mode yet, a set of 12 mini-games designed for multiplayer (although the AI will happily step in). The original six from the first game return (Race, Target, Golf, Fight, Billiards and Bowling), along with six new games (Boat, Shot, Dogfight, Soccer, Baseball and Tennis) that have to be unlocked by aqquiring Play Points from the normal game modes. They're all pretty much as you'd expect, and have plenty of options to finetune the experience you want, rather than the slapdash and last minute feel of so many minigames in modern releases.
And now for the actual fundamental aspects you're meant to cover during a review. The backgrounds look fairly functional, and are rarely distracting, but few really push the boat out. There are plenty of nice little touches throughout the levels though (look out for the monkey head logo in many weird places). The levels themselves match the worlds they're in, but again, never jump out asthetically. Although a few of the contraptions are a little weird to say the least (Arthropod, for example). The sounds are almost bog standard and what you'd expect, but thankfully the guy who shouts Start, Fall Out, and Goal doesn't grate after a few hundred times. The music again, is fairly bogstandard, although a few of the level tunes are quite pleasing. Especially Monkey Shot's theme.
Finally, the extras. You can spend your extra Play Points on the in-game cutscenes, the credits level (another SMB fact, there is always a credits level, they are never static), and extra lives for Challenge Mode. Which become essential if you ever want to see Master Mode.
So, to summarise this long winded review. Super Monkey Ball 2 took the SMB formula, and ran with it. However, anyone who's rolled before will get a distinct sense that its all a tad too easy. Still, at least there's no constant load times like Deluxe on the PS2 and Xbox.
Final Score - 8 / 10
Ah well, first review in half a year or so, here goes nothing...Name - Super Monkey Ball 2
Platform - Gamecube
Release Date - March 14th 2003
Players - 1 to 4
Publisher - Sega
Developer - Amusement Vision
The ball rolling genre, for want of a better name, has always been a particular favourite of mine. Monkey Ball, Marble Blast, Mercury, Katamari Damacy, I've played, and loved, them all. And so its hardly surprizing that almost 6 years on, I still fire this up every now and again for a good old laugh, and cry, as I try to conquer fucking Master mode.
The goal, for those of you who haven't played one of the 8 or so games in the series, is simple. Get your monkey in a ball from the start to the goal, in 60 seconds, without falling off the stage. Sounds simple. And for the most part, it is. The "controls" involve you just tilting the analogue stick to tilt the stage respectivly. Tilting it foward makes your monkey roll foward, slanting to the left makes him (or her) roll to the left, and so on. Its a basic system, but one that works brilliantly, with no complications of jumps or powerups.
And there are plenty of stages to complete, over 150 are tucked away in the game, some as easy as rolling straight fowards, some as hard as to make your soul cry. There are two ways to play the main game. The first is Story Mode, which involves time-travelling villans and babies and loads of other stuff that tries to explain monkeys rolling about in balls, and fails horribly. There are 10 worlds, with 10 stages in each, all of which you have to clear. The good news is that you have infinite attempts, and are rewarded with a cutscene between each world.
The other mode is Challenge Mode, which is far more like Super Monkey Ball 1, except much easier, as pretty much every levels from Story Mode's worlds 1 through 9 being used at some point in Beginner, Advanced and Expert. The differences here being that you can select your monkey out of Aiai, Meemee, Baby and Gongon (you're forced to play as Aiai in Story Mode), and that you have a limited number of lives, and if you fail, its back to the start. Of course, if you manage to collect 100 of the bananas lying around the levels, you'll get an extra live, a godsend when you first start playing. Sure, you can use a continue to carry on where you left off, but if you're forced to use one of those you can't access the Extra levels, 10 challenging levels which demand much more precision and skill. You'll also encounter Bonus Stages littered with bananas, which don't have much point here, seeing as there's a goal in them, rather than forcing you to go for bananas ala most other Monkey Balls. If by some miracle you batter your way through Expert and Expert Extra, then the hellish Master is unlocked for play, and if you beat that (an achievement I've never accomplished), then Master Extra awaits.
The good news is that once you've played a stage, you can replay it over and over again in Practise Mode until you've got it down pat. And talking of replays, you can save your favourite runs of levels, to guide or impress others.
Dear lord I've babbled on a lot, and I haven't even started talking about Party Mode yet, a set of 12 mini-games designed for multiplayer (although the AI will happily step in). The original six from the first game return (Race, Target, Golf, Fight, Billiards and Bowling), along with six new games (Boat, Shot, Dogfight, Soccer, Baseball and Tennis) that have to be unlocked by aqquiring Play Points from the normal game modes. They're all pretty much as you'd expect, and have plenty of options to finetune the experience you want, rather than the slapdash and last minute feel of so many minigames in modern releases.
And now for the actual fundamental aspects you're meant to cover during a review.
The backgrounds look fairly functional, and are rarely distracting, but few really push the boat out. There are plenty of nice little touches throughout the levels though (look out for the monkey head logo in many weird places). The levels themselves match the worlds they're in, but again, never jump out asthetically. Although a few of the contraptions are a little weird to say the least (Arthropod, for example). The sounds are almost bog standard and what you'd expect, but thankfully the guy who shouts Start, Fall Out, and Goal doesn't grate after a few hundred times. The music again, is fairly bogstandard, although a few of the level tunes are quite pleasing. Especially Monkey Shot's theme.Finally, the extras. You can spend your extra Play Points on the in-game cutscenes, the credits level (another SMB fact, there is always a credits level, they are never static), and extra lives for Challenge Mode. Which become essential if you ever want to see Master Mode.
So, to summarise this long winded review. Super Monkey Ball 2 took the SMB formula, and ran with it. However, anyone who's rolled before will get a distinct sense that its all a tad too easy. Still, at least there's no constant load times like Deluxe on the PS2 and Xbox.
Final Score - 8 / 10
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Re: TGE Review - Super Monkey Ball 2
by Will n that on Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:15 am
I don't recall ever seeing any professional publication using FUCK in the opening paragraph
Nice review though Slazo if a slightly obscure and outdated choice of game.
Nice review though Slazo if a slightly obscure and outdated choice of game.
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