Gameplay: 7/10
Here is where the ball was dropped (once again, pun intended. Laugh it up.) On the first easy stages you won't notice any difference between this and the Gamecube versions. Everything seems fine. But when you get to the more advanced levels you start noticing that you have far less precision in your control than you do on the Gamecube. At first I thought it might be because the Gamecube analog stick is superior to the Xbox analog stick. But now I'm not entirely sure, though I haven't ruled out that cause. When you try to make minor adjustments to the left and right, there is a bit of a dead zone in the controls. By the time you move the stick far enough to get the monkey to turn, it starts turning way too fast because the stick has been moved so far. As such it is impossible to navigate some of the more advanced levels that require precise, God-like control. This doesn't seem to be much of an issue when tilting forward and backwards, though. This probably won't be a huge issue for most people because most people suck at Monkeyball and other significant aspects of life. But it is a big deal for me since I am the Super Monkey Ball KING! However I was still able to defeat the story mode fairly easily, and the minigames do not seem as affected by the control debacle. Anyway, you get stages from SMB1 and 2 as well as 40-some-odd new stages. You don't select whether you want to play SMB1 or 2. Instead they are all combined into the main game and their stages are interwoven into the SMB2-style presentation. SMB1 stages have also been given names (they had none in the original game). The story mode is extremely stupid, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the game you are playing. Oh well, it is fun anyway. The minigames are all unlocked from the start and are presented well. Monkey Target is still the best! You can unlock more Monkeys per continue, and some other crap that doesn't matter. But since the control was ruined for the main game, I can't give it as much praise as the Gamecube versions. It makes the upper levels absolutely impossible. For shame! After playing the Xbox version for awhile, I plugged in the Gamecube version. It was like I was paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair for life and all of a sudden I was up sprinting around freely with my own legs!