Linkstew

In all that time that my sister was totally into The Monkees when I was a kid, I never really knew when The Monkees were from. I mean, I knew that the TV show wasn't current, because even my young eyes could tell that the shows were old, but it never even occurred to me to ask how old they were.

And for that matter, in all the years since, I never bothered to really find out much about them. But all of that changed tonight, when, while going through my CDs, I ended up reading the booklet in my copy of The Monkees Anthology.

And once I found out that the group started in 1966 and had a big 20th anniversary thing in 1986, a lot of things clicked for me all at once. The timing of my sister liking The Monkees made much more sense. All of the things my sister said about "Michael not being part of the group" (That's how I remember what she told me. It's probably not what she actually told me. Hell if I remember. I was six.) as though it were current news now makes sense, because michael not touring with the others for 20th anniversary was current news.

Of course, that news currency question was another question that I didn't ask then, but which only occurred to me years later. In fact, one evening while letting my mind wander about the Internet and the impact it's had on how quickly information is disseminated these days (and in particular, I was thinking about news about the music business and how easy it is for me to check up on TMBG at any given moment), I got to wondering how my sister got current information about her favorite bands when she was a kid. And my mom before her, for that matter. I jokingly wondered to myself (not knowing then about The Monkees' 20th anniversary shindig) if my sister had been reading my mom's magazines from when she had been a teenager and passing the content off to the unsuspecting six year old as news.

(And now that I've typed that, I somewhat sheepishly realize that my sister had early MTV to feed her news, while my mom before that had the radio. For some reason neither of those options really occurred to me in my thinking about the internet that night, and I instead only thought about the internet of today versus magazines back then. Probably because they're both text based mediums with a rich dose of color for good measure. Meh, I stand by the joke as written.)

Oh sweet monkey loving, Super Monkey Ball 2 is in development and should apparently be out this fall. Can you say Monkey Soccer? And looking at those screenshots, the backgrounds look amazing.

Whee!

I waffled for a long time on purchasing this title, but in the end I ordered it when I ordered Super Smash Brothers Melee. And I don't think a better spontaneous decision could have been made.

What is Monkey Ball? In its most basic form, you control a Monkey, in a ball, and your goal is to roll that ball across an obstacle and hole filled floor to a goal without falling off. Well, actually you control the floor, and tilting it different ways gets your Monkey Ball a'rollin'.

And Super Monkey Ball manages to execute this gameplay perfectly. And it's lots of fun, though some of the later levels do get a little frustrated. I'm stuck on two different levels at the moment, but that's not going to keep me down. There's more than 100 floors to roll through, and I've only played the 40 easiest ones so far.

Oh but wait, there's so much more. In addition to the main game, there are 3 party games and 3 bonus games: Monkey Fight, Monkey Racing, and Monkey Target. And Monkey Billiards, Monkey Bowling, and Monkey Golf.

And Monkey Ball superbly executes each of these extra modes as well.

Monkey Racing puts you in control of a monkey ball on a race track against three other monkey balls. Up makes you go faster, Down makes you go slower, and A uses an item you've picked up. Couldn't be simpler. Go, and attempt to win.

Monkey Fight drops four monkey balls onto a platform in space, and your goal is to knock your opponents off. Not by crashing your monkey ball into them, because by the laws of physics that just wouldn't out well. No, instead, you've got a huge retractable boxing glove attached to your monkey ball, and hitting A sends it flying! Plus, there are power ups you can pick as the fight progresses. The most points wins.

Monkey Target is by far the trickiest of the games, but once you get the hang of it, it too is fun (though perhaps a little less fun than those first two). After rolling your monkey ball down a giant ramp, your goal is to hit a target as accurately as possible. Once you launch from the ramp, A switches you into flight mode. You can steer a little, but too much will use up your momentum. That's the tricky part. Then, once you're above the target, hit A again once you feel you've aimed sufficiently, and hope for the best. There are a few more complications here, and it's harder than it sounds. This is my least favorite part of the game at the moment.

Monkey Billiards lets you play a game of Billiards, using a monkey ball as the cue ball. That's about all there is to this 1 or 2 player game.

Monkey Bowling lets you use a monkey ball as a bowling ball, but it's not that simple. You can't aim or pick your power and your spin yourself. Instead, an arrow is quickly oscillating back and forth across the lane, and you hit A to stop. And then a power gauge quickly oscillates, and you hit A to stop it. And then, between the time the ball is rolled and the time the ball hits the line, you can adjust the curve with the L and R buttons. And because of these insane reflex and timing restrictions, this game would probably be a blast while drunk.

And finally Monkey Golf, in which you play golf with a monkey ball. Monkey balls don't bring anything to the golf mini-game sub-genre, but that's not a bad thing, and this is just as much fun as Monkey Bowling.

So, this game is a blast. My roommates and I played it for several hours tonight. If you've got a GameCube, you should not hesitate to buy Super Monkey Ball. However, Super Monkey Ball is not a reason to buy the a GameCube. (Actually, for me, the only launch title worth buying a GameCube for was Rogue Leader.)

Super Monkey Ball doesn't attempt anything grand or breathtaking. What it does attempt is simple controls, fun game play, and lots of replay value. And what it attempted, it accomplished perfectly, and that means 5/5.

(Oh, also, I'd just like to share how freaking weird it is for a Sega logo to show up right after a Nintendo logo.)