Official Wii Thread: Part 6(66)

[kingoffighters]

I hate you Yoshi, almost as much as I hate Nintendo.

[SpoDaddy]

I picked up Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz used for $15 off Ebay the other day and finally sat down with it this afternoon. Most of the minigames are worthless but there are a few great ones (Monkey Wars is the best of the bunch). That said, the single player is fantastic. I was skeptical of how well the game would translate to tilt control but it works flawlessly and feels really natural, especially since the entire level tilts on the same plane as the wii remote. It feels more natural and precise to tilt the level to varying degrees with the remote instead of an analog stick since you always know exactly how much tilt will result from your input. The new jumping mechanic adds a fun layer of depth to the game as well; it's not overused or gimmicky, but rather intelligently worked into the levels to give the game a bit more of an old school platformer feel. The levels are really well designed (much closer to the original than Monkey Ball 2) with no blind luck elements; when you fall out you know exactly what you did wrong.

I would have preferred a multiplayer mode on the level of Monkey Ball 2 but I'll happily settle for the best single player Monkey Ball game ever. It's not like there's a shortage of minigame collections on Wii after all....

[magnifiedplaid]

The new jumping mechanic adds a fun layer of depth to the game as well; it's not overused or gimmicky, but rather intelligently worked into the levels to give the game a bit more of an old school platformer feel. The levels are really well designed (much closer to the original than Monkey Ball 2) with no blind luck elements; when you fall out you know exactly what you did wrong.

This is exactly what I thought when I first bought the game. IMO, the first two worlds are the best Super Monkey Ball experience since the first game and the jumping mechanics did seem to add a great new layer to the gameplay. However, the inclusion of enemies and boss fights was VERY POORLY IMPLEMENTED. I could stand the enemies for about the first two worlds, but then the boss fights started to become near impossible due to Sega's usually shitty camera system and the fact that enemies you can't see are attacking you from all angles. After dying about 40 times on the fourth boss I was just asking myself "why are there even enemies in a Super Monkey Ball game", and the familiar thought of "all I want to do is play the damn puzzle stages, but I can't play any more puzzle stages until I beat this stupid boss" entered my head. Eventually I decided the game wasn't worth all the hassle, and it would still be much more fun to just pull out the original SMB.

I hope you continue to enjoy the game though, and maybe you wont have as much difficulty with that boss and camera as I did.

[James]

I hate to say it but I just can't stand Monkeyball. Give me camera control of forget it. The puzzles wouldn't be half as challenging if I had controls that should be standard in any 3D game.

Kororinpa gets around it by stapling the camera in place, but Monkeyball's flying camera is more trouble than it's worth. Marble Blast Ultra on 360 got it perfect, but providing the utter basics isn't really all that much to be proud of.

James

[Rtificial]

Anyone here played the DS cooking mama? I don't have a DS, but bought the wii verison. I was wondering how they compared out of curiousity. I'm having fun with the wii verison. I know its a bit of a niche title, but I'm sure it would be a fun rental with friends if you're not into culinary or niche games.

The engrish phrases cooking mama says will draw some strange looks and laughter. I believe there are 55 recipes in the wii verison. I'm currently going through the lets cook mode to unlock more recipes and recipes in battle mode. I haven't got to try battle mode in 2 player yet, but I look forward to that on some of the longer recipes. Beating the computer gives you lil gifts to decorate your kitchen with.

[Finch]

The original was too easy and there wasn't reason to go on with it. Sounds like the new one has some kind of reward.

[Jeremy]

A $50 instant rebate is included with every copy?

[Razor Ramon]

I lol'd.

[Rtificial]

The original was too easy and there wasn't reason to go on with it. Sounds like the new one has some kind of reward.

Yea I've heard from asking here lately about the DS one, that it was way easy. Some of the recipes are really easy mainly the USA ones for example, popping popcorn, making a hot dog which are 2-3 steps tops. Some of the other regions have some more harder ones, but nothing too difficult that you can't master with a little practice. Some just require a little thinking like saute' ingredients, which you need to know which items to put in first and when to add the others, all while shaking the pan back n forth. Theres another where it gives you these random generated mixed up clues about which ingrident to grab and add to the bowl. That can be a bit tricky depending on which way it scrambles up the picture.

I'm working on getting gold on all recipes and so far I've not had too much trouble. I think the difficulty may have been upped a tad from what I guess. Its fairly easy for anyone to pick up and play. I've not really tested how easy/hard the computer A.I is enough yet.

When I was picking up Cooking Mama, the gamestop had boxes of Super Paper Mario out. It caught me by surprise cause I thought the game was released early, but it was just there to tease. I'm really looking forward to that next month.

[Finch]

Me too.

I'm thinkin' that Cooking Mama for Wii might be more entertaining for using the stylus