Super Monkey Ball

This game has some major benefits and some very major detractors. After loading and playing it 3 times on my phone, I will never likely load it up again unless changes are made. Until then I wasted 10 bucks.
The good:
1. Graphics. Very nice looking!
2. Fun factor. Very fun to play!
3. Concept. It is the perfect game for the iPhone.

The bad:
1. The Controls. It is very difficult to control. After playing 30 levels, I am still not used to it. The "neutral" angle is too low and not adjustable. You must be sitting upright or standing and staring straight down to play it. Otherwise you either cannot see the screen or your monkey rolls backwards all the time. Try leaning back in a chair an playing it - not possible.
2. Starting over. This is the reason I will not play again unless they change it. I am currently on level 10 or 11. When I go back into the game to play, I have to start over at level 1! Ridiculous!! It is a game on a phone, most commonly played while killing time. How many times do I want to play level 1? Once.

The Game looks great, but performs poorly. The motions controls are terrible. Devs should learn from this game to enable some sort of calibration. Hopefully an update will fix the issue. Stay away from this for now until it is updated.

I'm extremely disappointed with the way SMB turned out. The game looks and sounds incredible but the controls are sub-par. Getting a grasp on this thing is nearly impossible and a major turn-off. Don't waste your money.

After all the hype, I expect great things. Instead I got a game that is too hard to control (with no setting to adjust tilt sensitivity). Is there a way to get my money back?

I did a lot of gaming when I was a kid. I own a Wii now, so I'm usually pretty good with motion sensor controlled games, but I couldn't play past the 7th board (of 100s), and I don't think I'll ever open up the app ever again. $10 TOTALLY WASTED.

This is a great game but HARD!! Because of the accelerometer any slight movement moves the ball and, once going one way, the perspective changes and you have to immediately turn the phone to keep it on course. You'll see what I mean when you play it. With some practice I'm sure I'll get over it but it looks like some frustration for a while

Granted this is one of the first games for the iphone/touch (offline games). And it's spectacular. At $9.99 it's a fair price (compare to DS/PSP other mobile games) and you've got a winner! Finally something useful to do with the iPhone when offline besides music/video. For example... sitting on a plane you can have some fun instead of updating your contacts. Again. It's definitely intuitive, but using the accelorometer (sp?) will take some getting used to and finesse. Definitely a must have for iPhone/Touch owners. And kudos to Sega for delivering such quality so early. Looking forward to more titles!

Though it took me a little getting used to the sensitive accelerometer-guided steering, this is a very intuitive game. It's an understatement to say the graphics are beyond anything I've ever seen on a phone, and this breaks ground for an exciting new class of games and applications. Gameplay is addictive though frustrating in the first few levels as you learn how to guide the Super Monkey Ball. At under $10, you owe it to yourself to test this game by SEGA, if not for a fun way to spend a few minutes here and there, it certainly offers a glimpse into the future of (mobile) gaming.

This is sincerely one of the best gaming experiences of my entire life. EVER.

I was skeptical but it was worth every penny.

This is an awesome attempt and the graphics and everything are great, but the controls seem to be too tight.

I've tried everything, uninstalled and re-installed multiple times. powered off my iPhone and back on again. Nothing, no errors during install. Click on the icon on my iPhone, the logo shows for a few seconds and then just quits. VERY disappointed that I can't get this working.

Ok, I am not complaining cause the game is too hard. I'm complaining cause the program acts very laggy in response to your tilts and stuff. It's seconds behind which kinda makes it unfun (it doesn't feel like you are tilting the world vs. trying to get a computer to respond to your inputs).

If you want a similar but much more fun game, try Manic Marble. It's hard (which is good cause you only get four levels which is why I tried this game that came with more) but the controls are much more responsive and it is much more fun.

I thought maybe people were right that the people complaining about the control on this game just weren't good at it but I found I wish I had listened to them and not wasted the money (and maybe spent the money on the non free version of Manic Marble (which has a free version so you can try for yourself to see how much better the controls are). There's a difference between being frustrated cause something is too hard and frustrated cause you feel like you are not doing well cause the computer is not responding to your input. I wouldn't even say this game is frustrating more than just not fun.

The graphics are amazing and this game would be so much fun except the monkey is almost impossible to control. The accelerometer does not work at all in getting the monkey to go which way you want him to.
And I was, you know, pretty darn good at this game when it was on the Gamecube, so I really don't think it's me.

This game would be really fun if the controls were not frustrating. Game doesn't include instructions on how you are supposed to hold phone which would help lower the learning curve.