You slide the chimp heads up and down with your thumbs to keep the ball in motion and break the blocks.
Chimps Ahoy! one-ups Super Monkey Ball's cuteness quotient by dressing up the titular primates in adorable pirate outfits and bouncing coconuts off their heads in a clever mash-up of Pong and Breakout. The game's cuddly art style perfectly complements the lighthearted gameplay while the physics are realistic yet unpredictable. Best of all, as you rack up points you can buy your monkey even more stylish regalia to wear.
Using your thumbs, you slide two monkeys on either side of the touchscreen to deflect coconuts in order to break gems, demolish pirate ships and bust open power-up chests. The 100-plus levels are well designed—gems are arranged to create narrow alleys that accelerate the flying coconuts with each bounce. Further keeping you on your toes are some surprising elements like multiple coconuts, glowing coconuts that pass through bricks instead of bouncing and floating enemies that can stun your bumpers by firing cannonballs.
The touch controls work adequately enough, but if you've got gorilla-sized mitts, more than a few errant coconuts will sail past your bumpers as your thumbs can often obscure parts of the screen. This doesn't ruin the game by any means, but we would have preferred an accelerometer-based option to tilt the iPhone in order to position both bumpers in a teeter-totter like fashion.
Chimps Ahoy! is great pick-up-and-play app that appeals to a wide audience, young and old. The touch controls could use a little work, but with more than 100 levels and a handful of unlockable items, Chimps Ahoy! will keep you monkeying around long after you've discarded most other iPhone games. Plus, if you're unsure, you can download the free "Lite" version to sample five levels.
Cute art style. More than 100 levels. Fluid physics. Try free Lite version before you buy.
Irksome touch controls.
