Manic Monkey Mayhem for the iPhone and iPod touch is available on the App Store for £2.99 and offers a solid game concept, good presentation and lots of games but disappointing controls and game play, giving it big potential from a future update.

A port over from the WiiWare game of the same name it has retained the humour, presentation and concept as the original and brings with it plenty of content and games, which goes some way to justifying the £2.99 price point, consisting of a 3 part campaign (plus tutorial) and 3 additional game modes: Greatest Ape in which you must outlast the other opponents to be crowned Greatest Ape, Minute Monkey in which you compete for the highest score in a minute, and Ape Team which pits you in teams against an opposing team.  Assuming you enjoy the mechanics and concept of the game there is plenty of content to Manic Monkey Mayhem, certainly enough to give you a long-time app on your device that you'll come back to again and again.  Similarly, if you really enjoyed playing this on another platform you will most likely enjoy playing this on the iPhone/iPod touch as well.

The levels themselves range from the simplistic to the challenging, even in the early campaigns, with good variety throughout.  From destroying boxes, deathmatch modes, golden banana (think Goldeneye golden gun), coconut rounds and boss rounds the campaigns are varied enough to keep you interested for the duration.  But despite this variety the core principle of each is throwing bananas to knock monkeys off their stands while dodging theirs to stay on yours.  Simplistic games often make the best games but the issue here is that throwing and dodging aren't interesting or exciting enough. 

One of the most disappointing aspects of Manic Monkey Mayhem is the throwing mechanism, which  isn't very exciting and lacks the finesse I was expecting from a new game on a new and exciting device such as the iPhone.  The current version allows you to throw an object by charging up a throw and then sliding your finger to release it, while the direction is determined only by the direction you're facing.  One of the initial attractions of the game before downloading it was the throwing, assuming I would be able to choose the direction and power purely by the speed and direction of a swipe across the screen, which would make for dynamic and exciting game play.  The reality however is somewhat stale, old fashioned and disappointing, and one of the main detrimental factors of the game.

Once airborne you can curve a banana's trajectory by tilting the screen and  similarly you can dodge forwards, backwards and to either side to avoid incoming bananas. Both of these are done by tilting the device which instantly highlights a second failing of the game's mechanic – the tilt controls seem over sensitive at times and despite being able to calibrate the accelerometer in each game it still doesn't seem to quite work.  I found the monkey was moving and dodging when I didn't want it to and became frustrated with it on more than one occasion because it was being too jumpy to play. While I don't understand how these games work from a technical point of view, I know the majority of other games don't have this issue and for £2.99 the end user expects more polished, slicker game play.

Overall this game should be more fun than it is, leaving big potential for improvements from later updates.  The presentation and animation is good, there is an excellent selection of well drawn and characterised monkeys and settings to choose from and the concept of the game is solid, potentially even good, only to be let down by weak game play mechanics.  Suitable primarily for a younger audience who will be captivated enough by the funny monkeys and good presentation to overlook the stale and frustrating game play, Manic Monkey Mayhem could come to life with a future update but currently can't be highly recommended at this price.

6/10