Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz - multiplayer hands-on

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50 minigames at your disposal, right from the beginning

The Wii has party games down to a science and the damn thing's not even out yet. Between Rayman, Wii Sports and Banana Blitz, your choices for loud, obnoxious shouting matches and "accidental" throwing of the controller are plentiful. We recently had the chance to sit four editors down with a copy of Banana Blitz and its 50 multiplayer minigames. The results were exactly what you'd want out of a Wii party game - tons of flailing arms and no shortage of questionable language. To get the full effect, check out ourcustom movie.

With 50 games to test and only so many hours in the day, we settled on a best-out-of-nine tour of the more interesting events. Most of the games allow four players and use both the remote and Nunchuk, but a few trim the playable slots down to two and others utilize only the remote. In order to keep everyone happy, we stuck with the four-player sort.

Next on the roster was a bumper car mash up with hovercrafts. You control your floating vehicle like you would a tank - pitching the remote forward controls the right engine while the Nunchuk handles the right. To move forward, both pieces have to be pushed ahead. The goal here was to bump into a glowing bulb on the back of your opponent's hovercraft, something easier said than done - the floaty nature of a flying car makes it hard to stop and change direction. But, if nothing else, the control mechanic here works great and makes us wonder about a possible Virtual On game for Wii.

Brett Elston
Brett Elston

A fomer Executive Editor at GamesRadar, Brett also contributed content to many other Future gaming publications including Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. Brett has worked at Capcom in several senior roles, is an experienced podcaster, and now works as a Senior Manager of Content Communications at PlayStation SIE.