'Super Monkey Ball Lite' Arrives
posted by arn on January 27th, 2009 1:36 AM EST in Free, Maze, iPhone games, iPod touch games
And the Lite versions keep coming. The most prominent iPhone game during the App Store's launch Super Monkey Ball has arrived as a Lite/Free version. [App Store]. SEGA saw 300,000 downloads (over $3 million in revenue) in the first 20 days of its release
Guide a cute little monkey encased in a transparent ball to victory by tilting and rolling him through a variety of slopes and turns. You must navigate a large variety of obstacle courses to reach goal lines within set time limits. Collect as many bananas as you can along the way and you'll be able to increase your remaining lives.
The game has been criticized by some for highly sensitive controls, though this has been tweaked in a more recent update.
The Lite version contains a tutorial and 3 stages. The full version contains 110 stages and costs $7.99.
App Store Links: Super Monkey Ball Lite, Free, Super Monkey Ball, $7.99
THIS GAME TOTALLY SUCKS
so hard to control!!!!
good "Marketing" move by Sega … I would assume sales of Super Monkey Ball have slowed/matured, so a solid strategy of reintroducing the app to iPhone newcomers who were not exposed to the opening buzz of the game when there was much less competiton.
a bit late…..
So, rather than making it playable, they ship a lite version instead… way to go SEGA! At least it will help people avoid it like the plague because this 'game' is absolutely abysmal.
I think that the improvements in the controls make it pretty good now.
The game has sensitive but good controls.
Everybody who hates it, didn't really take some time for the game.
There are many people who finished it and love it (including me).
This is one of the few FULL games in the iphone.
I never understood why so many people hate the controls in this game. I got it on day 1, and have always found it to be a very fun, polished effort. Hopefully more will try it now
You guys complain too much… there's nothing wrong with the controls.
Great great great game. The controls do take a little while to master and I haven't yet beaten levels 98 through the last but it's a fun game and well worth the 10 bucks. Has Dreamcast level graphics too, IMO
I wonder how much this game has made so far. $20 million maybe?
I really dont get why everybody is whining about the controls, I think the controls are the best for any iPhone game out there.
@Joost
I'd be careful to say it's the best.
Nothing beats Labyrinth in controls IMO
This game sucks, crashes after first tutorial level every time.
@Tristan
Try deleting it from your iTouch/Phone and then put it back on the device. Then, of course, remember to reboot the device. I've yet to have any crashing issues with this game, and it was the first one I bought back in August when I got my iTouch.
As for the controls, what people have to remember is that they are NOT controlling Ai-Ai (the monkey). You're tilting the BOARD. Controls are sensitive because, quite frankly, that's the entire point of the game: mastering the very sensitive controls. That's they way it was in the original arcade game (banana shaped joystick FTW!) and the subsequent GameCube ports. It's really no different on the iTouch/Phone platform in that regard.
Honestly…sometimes I think you "bad controls" whiners are to blame for stuff like Asphalt 4's motion controls getting raped with that last update. There was nothing wrong with those controls originally either, yet people complained, Gameloft changed it, and now it controls like utter crap.
I liked it, but it´s way too short (we are talking about the lite version, aren´t we?)
Interesting, I finally get to play the game that I was looking forward to the most out of all the demos back in June. I see the problems with the controls — the sensitivity is great when it comes to rolling, but the camera is what kills it for me. When you slow down to grab a banana on the edge of a ledge, the camera starts to swing around wildly, making it super hard to move in the direction you want. I wish that the speed of the camera was proportional to your own speed, and that you could give it assists with a swipe. I have a feeling that would solve the control issues that most people are talking about.
seems a tad late. everyone already spent 10$ on this. i did. and now i wait my ipod game decisions out, because i spent 10$ on it.
After just playing Blue Attack, where it seems like I needed to recalibrate the accelerometer every 2 minutes or so, this lite game was simply awful to play. Nothing that uses the accelerometer should be without a way to calibrate it, and this game is lacking in that department.
Played the lite version (too short, anyway; out of 110 levels in the full game they should have at least given us 6) and then deleted it. Not worth the money.
is this another lite version that the UK can't get? i missed out on spore free aswell. the UK do like games aswell you know! they are missing out on a potential sale, i was waiting for a lite edition because £5 is too much to risk when it has so many bad reviews, i need to try it myself!
I tried the demo and will definitely not be buying the full game, or not just that. The problem with this game is not only the controls, it is mostly the camera. As long as the camera doesn't move the game as fine, but when the camera swings around, and it will, everything goes to hell. The camera has been the bane of Sega's existence in the 3D gaming world and they have never been able to figure it out and it seems especially bad here because once it swings around it completely messes up the controls. While it rotates around, tilting right no longer moves you right. I can't even explain what it does in words because it is so messed up. It's comical that the demo even makes this problem painfully obvious. Oh, if you just play the demo in a get to the end way you won't run into this, but if you try to get all the bananas, you will run into it. If there were no time limit you could work around it by coming to a complete stop, turning very slowly, and then only moving once you and the camera are pointing in the direction you want to go, but you can't do that because of the time limit.
This is a nice looking game poorly executed, which is pretty much a good summary of Sega for quite some time now.
I get the impression from the comments that this isn't worth bothering with. Shame, because it always looked like it could be good.
It's a great game. Buy it.
Thanx for the lite version!
loved the sound when the monkey bumps into the corners or op ops when he has finished a level.
very slow move by Sega, but bettr late than never!
The lite version only has 4 levels so once you complete these 4 levels, buy it! It’s cheap like most iPhone apps and will cost less than a meal.
After just playing Blue Attack, where it seems like I needed to recalibrate the accelerometer every 2 minutes or so, this lite game was simply awful to play. Nothing that uses the accelerometer should be without a way to calibrate it, and this game is lacking in that department.
Testing.