From iPhone to iPad: Revisiting Super Monkey Ball 2
There are a lot of great new apps for the iPad, and there are some terrific old ones that have made the move as well. In "From iPhone to iPad," TUAW will revisit some of our favorite games and utilities that originated on the iPhone, and see how they've transitioned to the larger device. Have they made the most out of the new hardware? Is the application worth a separate re-purchase? After all, you can keep running nearly all of your old software in pixel doubling mode.
First up? Super Monkey Ball 2. We first looked at Super Monkey Ball a couple of years ago. My kids and I found the game hard to play, although I did appreciate the graphics. I wasn't alone in my negative SMB assessment. Its sequel, Monkey Ball 2, debuted late last year. It was a worthy follow-on that greatly improved on the original's playability, and generally garnered good reviews. The iPhone version currently retails for $7 on App Store.
The iPad has now launched, and Super Monkey Ball 2 has arrived as well. Is it worth heading out and spending yet another $9.99 on App Store to purchase this latest version? I can't make buying decisions for you, but I can report that my kids and I really enjoyed testing this game.
The graphics are, once again, top notch and the game play is very kid friendly. It was even fun for me to use as an inept, uncoordinated geek, and I am seriously bad at these kinds of fine motor games. As with earlier games, you select a monkey avatar that you roll around in a hamster-like clear ball, navigating through various courses in order to reach a goal.
The courses are progressively more tricky and, like many Sega games, you can gather power objects along the way -- in this case bananas, which provide you with extra lives when you get ten of them. There are bonus levels as well where you can really rake in the 'nanas. Beyond that, the game is really simple. You roll your ball. You attempt to avoid falling off the track to horrible deaths (it's actually quite gentle, there's no gore in this happy friendly place).
The game received its most favorable feedback from my younger kids. The eldest found it a little boring, although she allowed that she might enjoy playing it when trapped in a car for a while. The one complaint we all shared was that the game didn't allow you to adjust its accelerometer in order to account for the various ways that we were sitting and holding the iPad. We really could have used a setting that allowed us to use the iPad in a more horizontal (read "Gameboy-trained") way than the developers allowed for.
Beyond that, the application received a full compliment of thumbs up from the family, except for eldest who held out until 10:00 PM. That equals an approximate human score of 7.5 out of 10, mostly based on the fact that the game skewed young.
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