Back in November 2001, Sega's Super Monkey Ball was one of the GameCube's best launch games, and the company's recaptured most of the magic with Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. This Wii launch game contains the same all out craziness of the original, but with the unique controls of the Wii, as well as a whopping 50 mini games. A few issues keep it from greatness, but overall, the game's more fun than a barrel full of, well, yeah.

Similar to previous Monkey Ball games, the goal in Banana Blitz is to complete stages by guiding a monkey -- who's stuck inside a transparent ball -- to a goal without running out of time or even worse, falling off the edge. Instead of directly controlling the monkey ball, players shift the game board in several different directions, and to make things difficult, Sega's tossed in a plethora of new and nasty obstructions such as walls, spinning objects, bumps, annoying birds, and a host of other bothersome things, guaranteed to send hundreds, maybe thousands of cute little monkeys plummeting to their doom.

Banana Blitz's prequels feature analog stick control, but Sega's taken things a step further with this game by programming it to work with the Wii's motion sensitive controller, so instead of tilting a stick, players move the Wii remote within a 3D space. For example, pointing the remote downwards tilts the board, and pulling it up raises it. Boards can also be titled left and right by moving the remote in the respective direction, and as an added bonus, the monkey ball jumps by pressing the A button.

Surprisingly, the controls feel natural and work extremely well, at least while sitting directly in front of the TV screen. The controls come with a bit of a learning curve, but it won't be long before most people should be able to beat the game's stages rather quickly. However, even though the set up works, it never matches the spot on control of an analog stick, especially since the remote fails to work properly whenever it strays just a few feet from the Wii's sensor bar. Going outside of this very small play zone results in controller melt down, as turning and tilting becomes a near impossibility, but this doesn't appear to be a Sega issue, as the same problem plagues Wii Sports and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

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