Take four monkeys and stick them in balls. Put these balls in mazes littered with bananas and incredibly narrow platforms. Throw in some of the best multi-player party games imaginable, and you have one of the best GameCube launch titles, Super Monkey Ball. Back then it was the underdog, little was known or expected of it, but now the sequel is on it's way it's highly anticipated. Can it live up to the original?

The one thing Amusement Vision promise with Super Monkey Ball 2 is more. More puzzles, more multi-player games, more fun. SMB2 boasts some 150 levels in single player mode, all new, not taken from the first game as so easily could have been done. They're tougher than the levels from the original too, with more loops and corkscrews, more spinning around, and the need for a greater control of your monkey than ever before to stop you plummeting to your doom.

Levels are now themed to fit into the new story mode. The story revolves around Dr Bad-Boon, and his threat to cut off the monkey's supply of bananas whether it will also reveal the reason why the monkeys are in balls remains to be seen though.

As addictive as the single player game was in the original, the multi-player games are what kept the disk in GameCube's around the world, and all of those games make a return in the sequel, as long as six new ones! The original games have all been revamped, with Monkey Golf becoming regular golf rather than mini-golf, wacky lanes in Monkey Bowling, new tracks in Monkey Race, and formation flying in Monkey Target, so no longer will players have to wait for their turn.

The new games add even more variety to the title. Dog Fight sees the monkeys take to the skies to shoot each other down. They take to the rivers in kayaks for Boat Race, shoot targets in Monkey Shot, and Monkey Baseball, Soccer and Tennis are all fairly self explanatory. Monkey Tennis is said to be the best of the new breed, playing something like a combination between Mario Tennis and Virtua Tennis, if it lives up to half of that billing it'll be great.

So that's 12 games in all, so there's bound to be something to suit the tastes of all gamers, racing, shooting and sport. It's really hard to think what else Amusement Vision could have included here to make it any better.

It seems that everything that was good in the first game is still there, and there's a whole bunch of new stuff too. As it's still Super Monkey Ball it can still be a very frustrating experience, but when you got through it, the feeling of relief and achievement was something special. If that's captured in the sequel, and the improvements to the mini games make them more fun than before, this will be one of the best games available in the first quarter of 2003.

It looks like Aiai, Meemee, Gongon and Baby are going to take up residence in your GameCube again soon, and I can't see anyone wanting to let them out of their balls in a hurry.