When the lights go out at the zoo, complete mayhem ensues. From escaping their cages, to performing crazy stunts and tricks on other zoo animals, chose a monkey and travel across the zoo, competing against your friends in comical minigames to see who can cause the most mischief...

Monkey Mischief! includes 20 minigames which are designed to appeal to everyone from the very young to the very old. The monkeys have escaped from their cage at the zoo and are currently running around wild. Playing against up to three other players (the computer controls the rest so that there are always four competitors in each game) your goal is simple - win at all costs.

The game is split into four areas, each containing five minigames. Three of these five games can be played straight away, the other two are unlocked when you are placed first in the other three games.

The games are fairly straightforward and there is a brief explanation on how to play them before you start. While this isn't always clear, it won't take you long to get the hang of most of them.

There's a mix of good and bad games, although you have to keep in mind that this is supposed to be a game that the entire family can enjoy. My personal favourites include:

Monkey Memory (which you unlock in the first level) - there are three cups and you must memorise which one the ball is under. Watch them as they are moved around and then guess which cup the ball is under. Guess right and and you get another go - but the cups move faster.

Salmon Slap (which, again, must be unlocked in the first level) - jump on your pogo stick and slap your competitors with a large salmon. Position yourself well so that you slap them off the small island you are on and into the water.

Hurling Hippo Divas - grab a hippo by the tail, spin it around and send it flying as far as possible. Took us some time to get used to as the tutorial wasn't very clear. But once you get the hang of this it's great fun.

Rhino Rampage - Run from the Rhino, jumping over obstacles and collecting fruit as you go.

To be honest, we didn't manage to unlock the games from levels 2-5. This means there were eight games we didn't get to play. As the two games we unlocked in level one were the best of that level, it could be that the other eight games are equally as great.

The games that just didn't work well - mainly because the control system meant it was practically impossible to get a good score - include:

Hairy Houdini - the up/down and left/right actions never registered very well. They either didn't register at all, or register too heavily. Either way we just couldn't get anything like a reasonable score.

Crowd Control - using the controller to aim at approaching birds, you must pump the nunchuk up and down to send water flying their way. However, no matter what we did, the aim of the water went all over the place and was not possible to control.

Monkey Masterpiece - trace a shape on the screen by moving your controller over it. Practically impossible to keep on the line and finish within the time limit.

Monkey See, Monkey Do - copy what the monkey in the middle of the screen does. Some actions are simple, others almost impossible.

All in all, considering this is a family party game, there's enough quality material here to keep you playing against your loved ones for a while. Not a must own game, but then it's also not a bad collection of minigames. The younger members of the family will particularly enjoy the crazy monkey noises, and flatulent hippos.

7

Nick Smithson