Those poor, poor simians. Who could do such a thing as taking nature's court jester (the monkey) and imprisoning them in spherical balls all so that they can be rolled around by some invisible force's every beck and call? Rolling, rolling, rolling…get those monkeys rolling!

THE STORY SO FAR
On Skull Island, a filmmaker once went off in search of his newest film, but what he stumbled onto was a land that time forgot, where natives kidnapped the fair maiden actress who was to be the lead in his film, and quickly they set forth to sacrifice her to one of the monsters on the island – a giant monkey! Will the filmmaker and his motley crew be able to get the woman back from the monkey's paw?

Oh wait, that is King Kong. Lets see…story, story, story…oh yeah, some evil guy steals the bananas of the Super Monkey Ball monkeys and they take to their balls to get them back. Yeah, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz isn't going to win any Pulitzers for its story, because the opening cutscene is the only story you'll ever get.

SINGLE PLAYER: GAMEPLAY
The gameplay of the single player is simple, but I regret to inform you that this will be the absolutely last time I use the word "simple" anywhere else in this review. In Super Monkey Ball, you'll start off each level at a designated point and must roll your way to the end, collecting bananas as you go along.

Given the Wii's determination to use its controller to the best of its abilities, you'll not need the nunchuk attachment at all to complete the single player game, as the Wii controller and the A button literally does everything. Instead of controlling the monkey ball like you might expect in a normal game, in this game you control the board itself that hovers in a bright wonderland of excruciating puzzles. By tilting the controller forward you'll tilt the level downwards, by tilting left or right you tilt the level in that given way, and to make your monkey ball slow down you tilt the controller back so as to slant the level backwards, where your monkey is essentially try to roll up a steep hill. The only other control function is the A-button, which for the first time ever in a Super Monkey Ball game makes your simian jump into the air.

At its core, the reason why Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz fails is a two-fold one: 1) The controls are too difficult, and 2) The game is so freaking hard you just want to pull your hair out, curse at the screen, jump up and down on the couch like a raving monkey yourself, and then hurl the Wii controller through the television so you never have to look at the game again. If one or the other of the two were fixed, then there probably wouldn't be any major problem, but the tilt controls are less than responsive as even taking it slow and easy usually produced wacky results (such as a little tap against a bridge bouncing me right off the edge) and random screwing around occasionally got me across the finish line.

The levels don't help matters, what with their badly positioned trees, rolling snow balls, narrow passageways, slippery slopes, and much more. When you aren't playing one of the traditional levels, you'll end each world with a boss battle, that start off well enough, but then become just as hard as the previous levels were leading up to them. Oh, I still get angry just thinking about that spinning idiot with the belly button weak point…ARGH!

MULTIPLAYER: GAMEPLAY
Though the following focuses on the collection of mini-games in Super Monkey Ball and is listed under the multiplayer section, you can actually partake in these games alone if you like.

There are a whopping 50 mini-games in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, which you can choose to play one at a time, or if you have some friends over and want to make a night of it, you can select the amount of games and play that way, so each player has their wins and points accounted for at the end so an ultimate winner is declared.

The problem is that almost every single one of the 50 games is plagued by one of several factors. First off, though you are given very brief instructions on what to do, this involves poorly animated scenes that don't really show what motions or buttons you'll need to use, meaning that when it comes time to finally play the game, you'll probably do like me and simply try every button and motion combination until you see what works. Secondly, the controls once again work against the game, such as to line up your character in bowling, you swivel your controller, while Wii Sports did the same thing, but did it better by allowing you to use the D-pad to move your bowler. Another game that gave me problems was golf, because though I reared back to hit the ball, when it came time for my follow through rarely did my monkey perform the action; problem was most evident while trying to putt, because finesse is something the game can't pull of well (getting angry trying to get the game to work usually produced a boundary clearing smack rather than a gentle putt). Thirdly, the games just aren't that fun. Maybe the games would be more fun with multiple people playing in the same room trying to psyche each other out, but for a lot of them I just wondered, "Why was this included as a game? What is fun about collecting ladybugs?"

GRAPHICS
If I were to use screenshots from one of the Gamecube versions, would you even know the difference? Chances are…probably not, because though it may have a tad more polish, it still looks almost exactly like the Gamecube versions. I will say the graphics are nice despite their lack of genre pushing boundaries and are bright and beautiful from that standpoint.

SOUND
What's worse than repeating the same level over and over? Repeating the same level over and over with the same stupid little ditty digging inside your head until you've got a song headache that last for days. The terribly done music is about the only sound in the game for the most part, though you'll get a few sound bytes from killing your monkey or bumping into something.

IN CONCLUSION
For the longest time, I thought I was missing out on something by not playing the Monkey Ball series of games. If my time with Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is any indicator, it looks like I spent that time rather well in comparison after all. I still love monkeys, but I've learned that when you add balls to the mixture, you don't improve on nature's formula but rather devolve it. If there was a second Scopes Monkey Trial, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz would be at the heart of the matter.

Rating:
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