Super Monkey Ball 2 for iPhone Coming Soon

SEGA has submitted Super Monkey Ball 2, a much improved sequel to the popular iPhone game, to the App Store for approval.

According to IGN, SEGA teamed up with Other Ocean to work on the project. One of the main goals was to improve accelerometer based control which was a major complaint in the first version.

SEGA's Ethan Einhorn says "That took precedence over everything else. We looked very, very closely at what was working on the Wii game in terms of motion controls and what we could extrapolate from that. Part of what we were able to pull from that was much better control over the left and right movement of the character," he clarifies. "So we have something now where it is just so much easier to control the character and to make the precision movements that you have to."


An on-screen tilt meter located at the bottom-left of your screen displays your calibration on the board, which makes it easier to keep your center balance.

"We initially thought that if we couldn't get the controls perfect, we would just have a version of the game with bumpered boards, but we found that the control got so good that we didn't have to worry about contingencies like that," says Einhorn. "It was a real exciting moment for the team when we were able to put it into the hands of non-gamers, get them to play the tutorial, and have it lock as a great experience in a matter of minutes and not a matter of hours, which was a huge problem with the original game."

Super Monkey Ball 2 features an additional 115 stages across five unique worlds. "This game opens up in a very lush jungle space called Jungle Jumble. Then it goes to Pirate's Ocean which is a really cool stage with sunken ships. Then we go to Cobalt Caverns, which is just a psychedelic mushroom stage. Then you get Sinking Swamp. And finally Ultra Heaven, which is just all in the sky with clouds and really gorgeous."

There is also a Wi-Fi multi-player mode in which four players can compete. "The entire game -- all 115 boards -- you can play with three more of your friends. The entire game is unlocked for that. If you wanted to play the whole game that way, you'd have two hours of gameplay roughly where the game constantly changes," explains Einhorn.


No word yet on the cost except that its supposed to be competitively priced.

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