Super Monkey Ball 3D Ad

Here’s a very Japanese advert if I ever saw one! The lengthy advert highlights the three game play modes featured in Super Monkey Ball 3D.

The Classic Super Monkey Ball game play which we all know and love. Monkey Race which is a bit of a Mario Kart knock off and Monkey Fight, which is a bit of a Smash Bros knock off… Yeah.

Why they felt they needed to change Race and Fight from the frankly great fun party games they were in Super Monkey Ball Deluxe is beyond me but even more strange in my opinion is the omission of Monkey Target, easily the best party game the series ever had. Oh well, maybe next time.

Super Monkey Ball 3DS – Monkey Race Footage

Sega news has all been a little too sweet recently, something had to give and it just did. I present to you Super Monkey Ball 3DS – Monkey Race Mode footage.

Here I was hoping that a return to the original Super Monkey Ball team would yield some good results for this series but alas, this looks pretty damn awful.

‘Monkey Race’ in Super Monkey Ball: Deluxe was actually a very fun distraction from the main game. Not only that, but it made sense! You would race your monkey inside his monkey ball and use momentum to propel yourself down hills and around tight corners.

This here is just a poor mans’ Mario Kart or Sega All-Star Racing even. The track looks dull, the items look stupid, the graphics are nothing to write home about, and it just doesn’t look fun at all. It doesn’t even have monkey target, I’ll be giving this one a miss.

Super Monkey Ball 3DS Announcement Trailer

Check out the western announcement trailer for Super Monkey Ball 3DS! The trailer is all CGI and highlights the three games that will feature in Super Monkey Ball 3DS, classic Monkey Ball rolling, Monkey Fight and Monkey Race. There also seems to be a new bad guy on the block!

I’ve been a monkey ball fan since the first game but I’ve avoided the series since Monkey Ball Deluxe. This is due to the direction the series has taken, using the party games as more of a gimmick to show off a new control scheme instead of focusing on what’s important. Making fun, fleshed out games.

Super Monkey Ball 3DS seems to have returned to the ‘quality over quantity’ notion, and Monkey Fight and Monkey Race, two of my favourite party games, have returned,  although they seem to have new gameplay mechanics. But unfortunately my favourite party game of the lot, Monkey Target is absent!

Super Monkey Ball 3DS Trailer

The first trailer for Super Monkey Ball 3DS has arrived.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the trailer, you can’t tell how well the 3D works on a PC monitor so I can’t really comment on that. I do, however like the tropical sounding music going on!

I’m more interested in this Monkey Ball then other recent ones however, as this one’s being developed by the original team in Japan. One thing I will mention is that I hope those red rails that stop you falling out of the level do not stick around past the first few stages. I want at least SOME challenge!

Finally I really, really hope that the mini games are fun and fleshed out again. I don’t know about anyone else but the mini games in Super Monkey Ball 1, 2 and Deluxe are what kept me and my friends coming back time and time again. In more recent monkey in ball related outings the mini games have been quantity before quality, often serving as more of a tech demo for what ever control gimmick they have been designed around and not fun mini games.

Let’s hope we can trust the original team to get the (monkey) ball rolling again… Yeah, I went there!

SEGA permanently drops prices on iOS games

SEGA has announced a permanent price drop on their iOS games (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch). If you haven’t picked up some their titles when they had that crazy turkey deal, you suck. But you can still get them cheaper than usual.

  • ChuChu Rocket: Now: $2.99 (was: $4.99)
  • ChuChu Rocket HD: Now: $4.99 (was: $6.99)
  • Ecco the Dolphin: Now: $0.99 (was: $2.99)
  • Football Manager 2010: Now: $4.99 (was: $7.99)
  • Golden Axe: Now: $0.99 (was: $2.99)
  • Gunstar Heroes: Now: $2.99 (was: $4.99)
  • Phantasy Star II: Now: $2.99 (was: $4.99)
  • Shining Force: Now: $0.99 (was: $2.99)
  • Super Monkey Ball 2: Now: $2.99 (was: $5.99)
  • Super Monkey Ball 2 Sakura Edition: Now: $4.99 (was: $7.99)
  • Sonic The Hedgehog 1: Now: $4.99 (was: $5.99)
  • Sonic The Hedgehog 2: Now: $4.99 (was: $5.99)
  • Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode 1: Now: $6.99 (was: $9.99)
  • Streets of Rage: Now: $0.99 (was: $2.99)

Wow, Sonic 4 really dropped in price over the last couple of months. Get it!

SEGA teasing 33 titles at IAAPA

SEGA will have quite the arcade line-up at this year’s IAAPA. They have put out a press release that they will have 33 arcade machines at the show. 14 of those arcades will be ticket redemption games, 12 video game arcades, 3 will be coin pushers, 3 prize vendors, and one of them will be a photo booth.

Some of the games are easy to spot via US arcade vendors like BMI Gaming. They tease that SEGA has a Monkey Ball game, so that will be a brand new title probably shown at the show. Guess that trademark for Super Monkey Ball Ticket Blitz makes sense now.
IAAPA will be in Orlando, FL on the week of November 15th. Who is going to go?

[Source: Arcade Heroes]

Halo Reaching for Monkey Targets

For those of you who do not know, the recently released Halo Reach has a level and game-type making mode called Forge World. In this you are able to make any number of this, including modes that make it not play like an First Person Shooter at all.

A Super Monkey Ball fan has taken it upon himself to remake the Monkey Target minigame where you have to jump off of a ramp and aim yourself and hit the target if possible and try to get as many points. Obviously it is nowhere near as good as the real thing, but it is great to see fans take so much time to remake something like this! There are bound to be tons of SEGA themed variants in Forge World by now, so send a link if you see any!

Download the Map | Download Game Type

[Source: NeoGAF]

SEGA having back to school iPhone sale

Now you can get all your iPhone games on the cheap, you know before you go back to school and someone steals that brand new iPhone 4 you got during the summer.

Ecco the Dolphin $2.99 –> $0.99 / £1.79 – £0.59
Golden Axe : $2.99 –> $0.99 / / £1.79 – £0.59
Shining Force: $2.99 –> $0.99 / £1.79 – £0.59
Sonic the Hedgehog: $5.99 –> $2.99 / £3.49 – £1.79
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: $5.99 –> $2.99 / £3.49 – £1.79
Streets of Rage: $2.99 –> $0.99 £1.79 – £0.59
Super Monkey Ball: $2.99 –> $1.99 £1.79 – £1.19
Super Monkey Ball 2: $5.99 –> $2.99 / £3.49 – £1.79
Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition (iPad): $7.99 –> $3.99 / £4.99 – £2.39

I would download them, but I don’t have an iPhone.

[Thanks: charmed699]

GamesTM Magazine Goes Cover Crazy

The SEGA europe blog has just (as in a few minutes ago) announced that European magazine GamesTM is celebrating their 100th issue by releasing 100 alternate covers to represent their list of the top 100 video games. Of course, SEGA is on the list, so we can expect 12 covers to represent our favorite company. See the other six covers after the jump.

vyDmtWbi

Nagoshi speaks his mind about 3DS

Nagoshi isn’t afraid of saying what he thinks. He has stated that since the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo has pursued their video game consoles to be more toys than entertainment machines. He has suggested that he wants to pitch a few games for the newest handheld. Hopefully the new games aren’t Yakuza related.

“If future portable game machines demand that both social aspects and immersion be satisfied for when you play multiplayer and single player for instance, 3DS firmly answers these with Wi-Fi and 3D. I’d like to make a variety of proposals.”

Well, I guess its not that bad of a comment. Though, DS also had Wifi. Has Nagoshi used that? Read what other developers had to say over at andriasang.

SEGA: 3DS shows Nintendo’s brilliance


Possibly the best new piece of hardware shown at E3 this year, is getting praise by SEGA West President Mike Hayes. He is even talking about mature audiences.

“With the quality of the device they’ve got it’s possible they can expand their audience into an older, broader audience. It was interesting to see games like Saint’s Row on the device. If we could bring, let’s say, a House of the Dead or an Aliens title, if the audience for 3DS is much broader it could give us much more scope in that market, and that’s as exciting as well as Mario & Sonic and Monkey Ball games. The 3DS is Nintendo through and through, this is Nintendo’s brilliance. They’re almost in their own technological world, doing their own thing. Whilst 3D TV is quite an amazing technology advancement, and many companies will get into that, Nintendo will now create this huge business with their own unique piece of technology that very few if any, will be able to copy. That’s Nintendo over and over again, it’s fantastic. For us as a third-party it’s a great leg up in terms of the portable business.” – Mike Hayes

I expect the 3DS to be more successful than the DS just because I agree with Mike Hayes, the appeal is more broader compared to the original DS.

[Source: GoNintendo]

SEGA bringing Super Monkey Ball and Sonic to 3DS

There is a list of titles for 3DS floating around, showing all the games that publishers will be releasing for the new Nintendo handheld. SEGA has listed two titles, one just called Sonic (not final name) and the other Super Monkey Ball (not final name).

I’m not shocked, Super Monkey Ball is always used on new devices like iPhone and Banana Blitz was a launch title for the Nintendo Wii. Sonic obviously sells well on a Nintendo system and Sonic will also be a launch title on Kinect.

[Thanks Suzuki Yu]

SEGA characters invade Modnation Racers


Even though SEGA released their own racing game, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing, doesn’t mean SEGA characters can’t crash Sony’s Modnation Racers party. Since the game features some pretty deep create a character tools, it was expected that a SEGA fan would create their favorite characters in the game.

Our forum member Monkeroony has done just that. Creating Sonic, Shadow, Beat, Aiai, and even Ryo Hazuki. If you own the game, search for his creations or you can check them out here.