What is Monkey Ball? If you asked someone that question, what responses do you think you would receive? Here are a few of the answers several people gave me: a soccer game, videogame, and someone even said that they though that it was trained monkeys playing basketball. The answer I was looking for is a videogame. Sega released Super Monkey Ball to the gaming world a few years ago, and audiences really enjoyed it. Over three years have passed since that day, and Sega has finally decided to bring this game to the Xbox. You might begin to wonder what this game is all about. Wll, read on and you will soon find out.

There are two main modes of play, Main Game and Party Game, and each of these modes has several modes in them as well. The Main game portion contains the story, challenge, competition, and practice mode. Story is the main meat of the game. Players will go though 10 worlds trying to capture the evil Dr. Bad-Boon who has stolen all of the bananas from the monkey village, and wants to cause the monkeys havoc.

Players will take on the role of AiAi as he goes though each world and completes levels to get one step closer to capturing the evil Dr. Bad-Boon. Challenge mode puts all of the levels in order of difficulty to see if players can beat them with the limited lives at their disposal. Competition mode allows players to go at it to find out who can complete the levels the best and fastest. Practice mode just allows players to get the hang of the game.

The concept of this game is very simple and an awful like Marble Madness. All players have to do is roll the monkey from point A to B in 60 seconds. While going from point A to B players will have to avoid numerous obstacles and falling off of the level. This sounds extremely easy in concept, yet the game can get very hard and tremendously frustrating. For example, one level feels like it has every single challenge that can be found on this one level. You can get so close to the end and make a slight twitch of the controller and blow the entire level. This is where the frustration of the game kicks in, and it will happen more times than not. While the game is not hard, you will beat yourself up because it took you “X” number to tries to get past this seemly easy level.

The Party game mode is a collection of three different mini games that you or a couple of friends can play. These mini games are worth the game purchase alone. The games you can play cover a wide variety such as billiards, golf, tennis, soccer, king of the hill, and many more. The mini games are really great and you will find yourself playing them more than the story mode at times. A huge problem is that it doesn’t contain any Xbox Live component! I have to wonder why because the mini games would have made it a killer online app!

This game has not received any graphical makeover since its release on the GameCube. At the same time its simplistic graphics really fit the entire game perfectly. The character models are really simple in nature and get the job done. The backgrounds and levels that the players must go though also are very simple, yet really fit the whole theme that this game carries. The framerate stays steady throughout the entire game as well. My only complaint is that the camera will cause you some pain at certain points in the game. It is not bad, yet it could have been a little better to make the gameplay smoother.

The audio of this game is not that great either. Throughout the entire game you will be forced to listen to the shrills of the monkeys and the bothersome tick of the timer. The most aggravating part of the audio is the extremely “happy go lucky” (aka annoying) soundtrack. This game is one of those games that would have seriously benefited from the use of Custom Soundtracks. It would have been so much better to listen to your own music as you attempt to go through some of the most frustrating levels found in the game. Instead, players will find themselves hitting the mute button really quickly if they want to play through this game.

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe is rated E for Everyone for Violence.

Gameplay: 8.0
Super Monkey Ball Deluxe is super easy to understand and play. The only thing that will frustrate you is some of the levels in the story mode. The mini games it includes really expounds the replay factor tenfold.

Graphics: 7.5
The graphics of Super Monkey Ball Deluxe are really simple; they look almost identical to the GameCube release.

Sound: 7.1
The sound effects and music for this game are really simple, and will get annoying - especially the constant tick of the timer - after listening to them for a while.

Difficulty: Medium
This game is easy but very frustrating. There are some levels that will have you wanting to throw your controller through your TV set.

Concept: 7.7
The game is very reminiscent of Marble Madness. Even though this game is very simple in nature it is very addicting, especially all of the great mini games it comes with.

Multiplayer: 8.5
The mini-games that Super Monkey Ball Deluxe comes installed with are really fun to play with other people. In fact, these mini-games are almost if not better than the single-player game!

Overall 7.7
If you have never played Super Monkey Ball before then this game will be one everyone should check out, and at least rent it. One of the best things is that this game, even though it can be really frustrating, is suitable for the younger gamers that might be in your household.