PixlBit

You know back during when I had a Gamecube Super Monkey Ball was a fun little arcade experience. The game had you control monkeys in balls on a series of courses. A lot of the courses featured winding paths and platforms that sometimes were challenging and gave gamers a brand new series from Sega to enjoy. Unfortunately, this experience doesn't translate to the Wii. And it failed to do it twice. Today a special two for one. Banana Blitz/ Step & Roll.

Now on metacritic & gamerankings Banana Blitz fares better. It has an average of 73 & 74%. Step & Roll is at 59 and 60% But let me tell you why these games are garbage. As a launch title I could certainly understand why Blitz got some slightly better reviews. However, there's a fatal flaw with this game and it's the controls as well as the sequel.  But before we get get into that. Let's get into the plot.

Banana Blitz has the most interesting and odd plot the series has had. It introduces a new pirate baboon villain. In the opening cut scene he steals the Golden Bananas and it's up to AiAi and his friends to recover the scattered pieces of it. It reminds me of Donkey Kong Country in a way.

Now the first few levels are alright. In fact they are certainly easy enough. You'll go through courses and hardly lose a life. By the time you reach the desert, you'll soon stop having fun. And soon you'll start experiencing the feeling of frustration with a launch title wii game. The controls make the game excessively difficult and worse yet the courses gradually get harder. You'll find yourself on a tightrope style board utilizing the wii remote...let me tell you the result of this. You're going to die...a lot.

One such instance for say on a hill,  Your monkey will careen out of control at the slightest movement. I have never before felt that feeling of frustration to a point where I wanted to punch the announcer every time I heard him shout "Fall Out".

The monkeys themselves have different attributes. I often found myself using Gangan the slow, but powerful monkey who helped me get to world 8 and beat the the pirate baboon in space. Another aspect that is bad, but not necessarily infuriating is that bosses are pretty standard battles. They even have "hit me here" weak spots that the game literally points out to you. Sure Mario has that, but this game insults my intelligence to the point where it has to tell me to hit the purple glowing spot on the bird's head or hit the space pirate baboon's glowing ass.

Now if you want to torture yourself some more try beating this game without continuing. That's right. Beat all 8 worlds and you'll unlock a special 9th world...if you can survive that is. If you want to know how hard this is let me tell you...It fucking...sucks....baboon ass. Oh and if you beat world nine somehow without continuing...You unlock world 10! I broke a wii remote by throwing it against my wall because of this game. I literally smashed a controller because of how frustratingly difficult this game is to control. So now imagine doing this and trying not to die. It will take every amount of sanity you have left and shit on it.

Hit the glowing baboon's ass!

So after torturing yourself in single player mode...you can torture your friends with 50 multiplayer mini games! Some are decent enough. However out of 50 games...10 are fun and not all of them feature monkeys in balls. You'll catch fruit in basket, heard sheep, race in a marathon, shoot each other in space ships, etc. But overall the games are substandard Mario Party affair at best.

Just one of the 50 mini games you won't enjoy.

Review: Finding out a baboon has stolen your golden bananas/10

Okay now for Step & Roll

Step & Roll doesn't have a storyline or boss battles,  It has less worlds, 7 in total (the 7th is an unlockable) but what it does have is terrible, new Wii balance board controls!

Simply moving in a straight line on the the Balance Board is excruciating. The  controls are far too imprecise and overly-sensitive to calculate. What’s more, the awful camera will work against you, constantly shifting position for no reason and cause you flailing in attempt to re-align yourself. You can always utilize the remote control. The same problem pertains. However, now more obstacles are put in the way! In a baffling design choice the wii balance board gives you less obstacles and easier course, but the controls are downright atrocious. Using the remote gives you a slightly better control, and more obstacles makes courses harder.

Step & Roll offers mini games too! So once again invite your friends over to torture them in 21 horrible mini games! That's right you also get less mini games and they're just as bad! Some of the games from Blitz return such as the spaceship shooter, but again a lot of them are pretty bad.

Review: Step on or Roll this game out of existance.

So there you have it. Now my opinion is hardly shared by everyone. Both games have gotten good reviews and some people may have enjoyed it. However, from my experience the controls ruin what could have been a fairly good foray into the Monkey Ball series that I used to enjoy. And now that it's over with...what's next on the list?

AH THE TERROR!!!!