Super Monkey Ball in motion

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is looking like a simian-shaped lump of fun in this new gameplay trailer for the motion-sensitive Wii game - just hit the Movies tab above to see for yourself.

Concentrating more on the new Wii-mote-friendly minigames, the trailer shows little of the traditional Monkey Ball puzzle-board gameplay. You will, however, be able to spot one of the newly-introduced stage bosses being attacked by a jumping monkey. That's right, a jumping monkey. Developer and publisher Sega is mixing things up this time round and we're liking the changes so far.

We also like the look of the squash minigame, which lets you move around the court with Wii's Nunchuk controller while swinging your racquet with the Wii-mote. But the boxing game is the one we'd like to play most; we would say, "how could anyone punch such cute monkeys in the face like that?" But, let's face it, everyone's going to love giving Gon Gon a good pounding.

If any game is perfectly suited to Wii's unique interface and social gaming slant, it's Super Monkey Ball, so we'll be watching this one carefully in the build-up to its launch-window release.

October 31, 2006