MONKEY BOTS Alongside online play, Banana Rumble’s multiplayer modes allow you to face off against bots – up to 15 of them if need be. And while bots in a lot of multiplayer games can still be distractingly non-human in their behaviours, when you’re essentially playing as a marble already, the barrier for what passes as human is quite low. So bot-play in Banana Rumble can actually be as infuriating, thrilling and punishing as play against real humans in something like Fall Guys.

This is particularly true of the Ba-Boom! mode in which players must ditch a bomb and keep it ditched. Being handed an explosive in the last few seconds of the round is even more galling when you know that you can’t blame another human being for your fate.

Developer/publisher Sega (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio) Format Switch Release Out now

The more complex things grow, the more you suspect that the designers are having the balance of the fun

Casting an eye over the past 20-plus years, it’s been a while since Super Monkey Ball has looked right. And, where this series is concerned, looking right is a strange subject to begin with. Forever playing on the GameCube of memory, the first game is a riot of bright astroturf and sharp edges. Goal markers are covered in golden chocolate-wrapper foil, the lighting’s harsh and gloriously unforgiving, and there’s a sheen of commercial cheapness to everything you encounter.