Super Monkey Ball Deluxe

Numbers one and two roll-on to PS2...

It is only now, some four years after the original release of Super Monkey Ball for the GameCube, that PS2 and Xbox owners have been able to grab a piece of the action that sees players using an extensive amount of nerve and skill to guide their simian companions Marble Madness-esque through hundreds of deviously designed levels. Has Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, a combination of the two original games plus over 40 extra stages been worth the wait?

The premise of Super Monkey Ball's single player game is simple. Using the analogue stick to tilt the whole level's playing surface, it is your job to maneuver your chosen chimp to and then through the finishing post's tape before the time runs out. Hindering your progress along the way are all manner of distractions that include ramps, moving platforms, jumps, holes, and even DVD player-style fast-forward and play switches that increase or decrease the speed of certain obstacles on each stage. Complete the level within the allotted time and you move onto the next, but if you're too slow or fall off the edge, then its back to the beginning for another try.

The single player Story Mode is where you are most likely to head first. As you might expect from a game that involves a quartet of primates rolling about in transparent balls, the storyline is just as quirky and really only exists as a way to provide continuity between each set of ten levels: Evil Dr. Bad-Boon decides one day to steal all the bananas from Jungle Island, the home of our central characters, which he does. He then sets about trying to sink the island and destroy its inhabitants through a series of tricks last implemented in the Roadrunner cartoons. It is up to our brave heroes to save the day by completing each of Dr. Bad-Boon's 'mazes', collecting bananas on the way, foiling his destructive plans and seeing-off his army of stooges. Handily, the story mode gifts you with infinite lives so that you can retry each stage as many times as you like.

Then there is Challenge Mode, which provides a bit more of a (you may have guessed already) challenge. Beginner (40 stages), Advanced (70 stages) and Expert (100 stages) are available to choose from. In these modes, you have three lives and five continues and are faced with the test of completing any of the difficulty settings available without these life-lines diminishing completely. The levels are just the same as in the Story mode, the only difference is that collecting a hundred bananas awards you with an extra life rather than just bonus points. I think it is safe to say that if you are able to complete all three sections (especially Expert to unlock Ultimate Mode) then you truly are a Super Monkey Ball master, with nerves of granite, the reflexes of a puma and most certainly the deserved assurance that says you can treat yourself to a large slice of your favourite yellow, half-moon shaped fruit.

Being a mixture of the original Super Monkey Ball and its sequel, Deluxe also has all of its prequels' multiplayer options. Excluding the multi-player option to race singleplayer levels, there are a further twelve mini-games to choose from. These range from Golf to Baseball and from Dog fighting to Billiards. Every game has a range of customizable options that provide so much unexpected scope for what is essentially an add-on to the single player experience that the set could potentially stand alone as a game in there own right. Lap numbers, track types, various stadiums, power-ups and computer participation or neigh are all readily available and can be easily tinkered with to your satisfaction.

Although the game offers so much variety and is very enjoyable to play, then, there are a few niggling complaints that if we were to look upon Deluxe as a tropical fruit, do still soften, bruise and rot-into what made the game's previous appearances pleasurable. Of these, the most frustrating is the pairing of frame rate problems with Sony's inability to create a really top-notch analogue stick control. In busier levels where the expertise required to negotiate impossibly thin platforms borders on robotic, unnecessarily jerky graphics and an oversensitive control method do not help. Admittedly the moan about the analogue stick is only from this individual and may not apply to everyone. Furthermore, it is not impossible to learn to compensate for the graphical problems, thankfully.

The only other gripe worth noting with the game is the frequency of loading screens, that appear after each and every level. Considering that some stages last only a matter of seconds this is particularly frustrating. Other than that, the loudness and pitch of the timer ticking down, especially as it overbears almost every other noise might annoy some, but then there's always the magical master volume control.

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe is one of a dying breed of games that infects you as a player with the 'one more go' syndrome. No matter how many times you fail to complete a certain level there is always an unstoppable compulsion to press X and try again. And again. And again. As late evening turns to early morning, after hours of play at the risk of suffering the seizure that gaming manuals always warn you of, you'll still be there telling yourself 'just one more go', determined as ever and blinking at the rate of once every twenty minutes.

All of this makes Super Monkey Ball Deluxe a game that is well worth its asking price for the single player game, let alone the addition of an ace multiplayer experience. It is probably also the game that you'll be telling your friends about one day after your trip to A&E, on that fateful night when you collapsed and inadvertently knocked your face into the shape of a control pad. All that remains to be said, perhaps, is remember to take regular breaks and to pray for a next-generation installment that includes online support.

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By Andrew Macarthy