The SPOnG office has seen near-physical fights over who is the best Monkey Ball character. AiAi, MeeMee, GonGon, and Baby all have their admirers and ardent fan cliques.
It got to the point where we'd thought (hoped! - Ed) we'd exhausted the possibilities for comparing and contrasting each of the four cheeky monkey's attributes, strengths, weaknesses and failings, so there were a number of raised eyebrows in the office when we heard the latest news from SEGA, which is that the Wii version of the game, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, is to feature two new characters - YanYan and Doctor.
YanYan is a young, vivacious female monkey and Doctor is "an older monkey with a past steeped in mystery due to his acute case of amnesia". Sounds very much like SPOnG's local NHS GP, apart from the bit about being a monkey in a ball.
Another new feature in Banana Blitz that's really piqued our already high interest in the game is the fact that each character will have strengths and weaknesses in categories such as acceleration, speed, and jumping ability. Plus, the size and weight of the monkey and its ball will directly impact upon a character's performance.
And if all this wasn't enough, then what about the fact that the game is going to have 50 new Party Games. Yes, fifty! It's like Monkey Ball meets WarioWare! Each one of these mini-games has been designed to take advantage of the Wii-mote in a specific way, and we are looking forward to heavy sessions of 'Whack-a-Mole' and 'Ring Toss' on our Wii. SPOnG loves tossing and whacking on our Wii!
We've still to receive pics of the new YanYan and Doctor characters and we'll make sure to let you see them as soon as we get them (we've been badgering SEGA, don't you worry), but in the mean time you can check out SPOnG's detailed preview of Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.
We're just hoping the few minor issues we had with the game when we managed to get a hands on back at E3 are going to be ironed out in time for launch, and we particularly felt that the flicking control method, which causes your character to jump, had not been adequately integrated into the game at that time. For, without blowing our own trumpets too loud, we are all Monkey Ball ninjas here at SPOnG and we just know when something in the game isn't cutting it.
We are sure SEGA's intensive testing of the game should have this minor quibble sorted out by now, and we will continue harassing them to let us have a more in-depth preview playtest as soon as possible.
It got to the point where we'd thought (hoped! - Ed) we'd exhausted the possibilities for comparing and contrasting each of the four cheeky monkey's attributes, strengths, weaknesses and failings, so there were a number of raised eyebrows in the office when we heard the latest news from SEGA, which is that the Wii version of the game, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, is to feature two new characters - YanYan and Doctor.
YanYan is a young, vivacious female monkey and Doctor is "an older monkey with a past steeped in mystery due to his acute case of amnesia". Sounds very much like SPOnG's local NHS GP, apart from the bit about being a monkey in a ball.
Another new feature in Banana Blitz that's really piqued our already high interest in the game is the fact that each character will have strengths and weaknesses in categories such as acceleration, speed, and jumping ability. Plus, the size and weight of the monkey and its ball will directly impact upon a character's performance.
And if all this wasn't enough, then what about the fact that the game is going to have 50 new Party Games. Yes, fifty! It's like Monkey Ball meets WarioWare! Each one of these mini-games has been designed to take advantage of the Wii-mote in a specific way, and we are looking forward to heavy sessions of 'Whack-a-Mole' and 'Ring Toss' on our Wii. SPOnG loves tossing and whacking on our Wii!
We've still to receive pics of the new YanYan and Doctor characters and we'll make sure to let you see them as soon as we get them (we've been badgering SEGA, don't you worry), but in the mean time you can check out SPOnG's detailed preview of Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.
We're just hoping the few minor issues we had with the game when we managed to get a hands on back at E3 are going to be ironed out in time for launch, and we particularly felt that the flicking control method, which causes your character to jump, had not been adequately integrated into the game at that time. For, without blowing our own trumpets too loud, we are all Monkey Ball ninjas here at SPOnG and we just know when something in the game isn't cutting it.
We are sure SEGA's intensive testing of the game should have this minor quibble sorted out by now, and we will continue harassing them to let us have a more in-depth preview playtest as soon as possible.
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