Super Monkey Ball

TIME EXTEND

How purity and precision tamed the ape within and centred everything on the analogue stick

By Jon Bailes

Developer/publisher Sega (Amusement Vision)

Format Arcade, GameCube

Release 2001

Consider the last time you used an analogue stick. Really used one, that is – as in actually considering the degree to which you were pushing it out from the centre to achieve appreciably different results. We’d wager that the majority of the people reading this would point to their most recent experience with a racing game.

Beyond precision driving, and especially when it comes to guiding human and animal avatars, analogue control has perhaps been less revolutionary than we had once expected. The thrill of coaxing Mario to tiptoe, strut and scamper with a single thumb in Mario 64 seems to have become rather too much fuss for most thirdperson protagonists over the past 20 years. While many will reduce their standard jog to a walk if you insist on being delicate, a sprint often requires a click of the stick, and sneaking another button entirely.

Returning to Super Monkey Ball after a long sabbatical, then, is quite the shock. With your analogue-control muscles most likely atrophied through lack of use, here they face their greatest ever test. Many classic console launch titles are renowned for showcasing the fresh features of their host hardware, but Super Monkey Ball is concerned with only one: the GameCube controller’s left analogue stick, more refined than its N64 parent, and smartly housed in an octagonal surround. The game worships that single interface, as prefaced by its arcade cabinet, built around a lone joystick in the shape of a banana.