Monkey Ball for your Mac

Neverball has long been a great freeware game for the Mac, but with the recent upgrade to version 1.5, it has all the polish of an app you’d expect to have to pay for.

Long before Monkey Ball became the rage on the iPhone and iPod touch, Neverball players were able to “tilt” a surface to roll a marble past obstacles, picking up enough coins to open a gateway to the next level. Of course, you don’t physically tilt your Mac the way you would an iPod. Instead, you use a mouse, cursor keys or joystick.

The 3D graphics are gorgeous — but be warned that any small children seeing them will likely want to play. Unfortunately, tilting is quite sensitive, and they will likely find it too difficult. In fact, many adults may find the sensitivity hard to get used to. Hang in there, though, because it’s worth the effort.

We were under the (wrong!) impression that Neverball was no longer being actively developed. But there is a huge list of improvements in this version, and developers and users are discussing ways to make it even better.

Included with the download, by the way, is Neverputt, a simple golf game. You’re playing in a sort of vacuum, so there aren’t any background graphics. But the actual courses are quite interesting and challenging.

Posted Wednesday, February 4, 2009 in Reviews