I love Super Monkey Ball. It's without a doubt my favorite title of the GameCube's launch. It has a staying power that was only rivaled by Smash Bros., and there is just so much to do.

For Super Monkey Ball 2 Amusement Vision has upped the ante in every way. The E3 demo had 10 levels out of more than 150 playable and nine of the twelve mini games as well. The new 'story' mode is mostly gimmicky, but this is fine with me since the exquisite gameplay has remained fully intact. The ten levels demonstrated showed off many interesting new graphical and gameplay designs. Many of them had moving obstacles and strangely shaped levels that are completely unlike the original game (which had mostly right angles and curves). Graphically, the game is just kickin’. The backgrounds are not only varied but beautifully modeled as well. Moving objects in the environments (including the Monkey Ball itself) cast fairly accurate dynamic shadows.

Now I'm sure you want to hear all about the new mini-games. Nine of twelve were playable.

Monkey Race 2: Monkey Race has been beefed up with more computer players and new tracks. I believe there are some new items to fire as well.

Monkey Target 2: I always liked the original Monkey Target, but it took way too long to play a game in multi-player. The new Monkey Target allows all four players to play at the same time. Furthermore, the random wheel of danger was no longer available, and help items are now floating in the air. You can glide right through a magnet ball and use it on that pass (in fact, you must use it because it won't be saved). There are now endless streams of bananas in the air that you can use to increase your score (these do not help you get items now). Finally, the shape of the targets is much more interesting and the scores are quite a bit higher than they used to be. I saw one person score over 10,000 points in a six round game (because he was good, not because it’s easy).

Monkey Bowling 2: The classic Monkey Bowling makes a return here along with a new version that has crazy lanes. Imagine playing Monkey Bowling while the lane pulsates like an ocean in a hurricane. The lane isn't fixed for all 10 frames either; you'll see different variations as you play through.

Monkey Fight 2: This remains a lot like the old Monkey Fight, but it has a lot of new features. For example, you can now hold down B to charge up your punches. Scoring is now one point per punch, 10 points for a normal kill and 20 for killing a king.

Monkey Pool 2: This one is a lot like the original but you can now play more games including the traditional 8-ball (also known as a regular game of pool). I still can't believe that wasn't in the first game.

Monkey Golf 2: This is no longer a mini-golf sim. It's a full-blooded golf game with 18 holes and varying pars. As before, control is very detailed and intuitive.

Monkey Boat Race: this new game puts your monkey in the bottom of his ball and forces you to navigate a crazy river. You have to use L and R to paddle on the left and right sides of your boat. Using the left paddle actually pushes you to the right and vice versa. The river will speed you along fairly well, but if you alternate both paddles carefully, you can increase you speed. You can also crash into the walls. This is a pretty cool game.

Monkey Soccer: I didn't like this one. Perhaps I didn't have enough time to play it, but the controls were a bit complicated and I'm not a big soccer fan (though I did enjoy Sega Soccer Slam).

Monkey Tennis: This felt like a watered down version of Mario Tennis. It's not horrible, but anyone who has played Mario Tennis or any real tennis game probably won't be distracted by this for very long.

Monkey Shot, Monkey Dog Fight and Monkey Baseball were not playable on the show floor unfortunately.

Although two of the new mini-games weren't very impressive, the improvements to the six old games along with over 150 new levels for the arcade mode are more than enough to get me just a little interested in buying this title in the fall.