Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz brings Monkey Ball back to its heritage. After a slight detour with the awful Super Monkey Ball Adventure, Banana Blitz is back to the straight up formula of levels which gradually increase in difficulty. The simplicity of Super Monkey Ball was always the magic so I have no idea why SEGA opted to change the formula in the more recent titles. Alas, this is all a thing of the past and you will soon be blasting your way through the beginner mazes of the single player mode.

The big change in the main game is the fact that you will no longer be controlling the action with an analogue stick, but instead tilting the main platform with your Wiimote. Tilting the remote im different directions will create the same motion to the platform in the game which is all very lucrative and gives for a greater sense of control over the platform. Remember that you do not move the monkey’s ball in Super Monkey Ball, you use the tilting of the platform to guide him through the levels.

Your monkey now has the ability to jump by hitting a button, allowing for some more difficult to reach bananas to be collected and adding a bit more of a learning curve to the game, but essentially this is the original Super Monkey Ball, with new mazes and a new control scheme, which may sound a touch negative but is actually fucking brilliant.

On offer in the single player game will be a modest number of mazes for you to tackle spanned out across eight varying words. The big talking point for Banana Blitz of late however has been the number of multiplayer games available.

Super Monkey Ball was always famous for its Target and Bowling minigames but Banana Blitz offers 50 multiplayer minigames in total, all taking advantage of the Wii’s innovative control system. On offer will be a first person style game, racing games, boxing games and a whole heap of other games that SEGA believe cover most of the common possible motions that will be used by the Wiimote.

While 50 minigames is a nice addition to the package, hopefully SEGA hasn’t skimped on the length of the main game in order to develop these subgames. Just exactly how many of the minigames will actually be fun is yet to be decided until we get our hands on a copy of the game come launch.

Until then, we can only admire the cutesy graphics and fluid animation of the game which will make it one of the best packages to get with your Wii.

Whether you are a newcomer to the game or a veteran – the Wii control scheme will ensure there is something new in this game for all players.