Early adopters of the Nintendo 3DS will no doubt be looking for
software to show off their new system. Super Monkey Ball 3D is one of those games that straddles the line between a “game to own” and a “game to show off.” In 3D, it looks good, and with the proper control scheme, it
plays great. However, it’s lacking in the actual “game” department; instead, you’ll find a short and repetitive single-player mode and decent, but uninteresting multiplayer.
Borrowing from the franchise’s iOS version, Super Monkey Ball 3D features motion sensing as a way to control your monkey in a ball. The motion-sensing works, but sometimes it either feels too accurate or not
accurate enough. Levels with too many tight 90-degree turns are frustrating due to having to move the screen around so much. It makes it hard to sense exactly how fast you’re going when the screen’s viewing angle is shifting around. And with the 3D effect turned on, even to the
most minimal degree, you can forget about playing this game with motion controls. As you may have already heard, if you’re not looking at the 3DS’s top screen directly, you get blurred visuals and flickering. Multiply that several times and that’s what it’s like to play Super Monkey Ball 3D in 3D.
