Jumping into a cold vat of melted ice lollies on a hot summer's day. No, that's not it... Getting a head massage from a yodelling koala while fluffy kittens tickle your feet with their little paws. Nope, still not there... Okay, how about dancing naked through a field of wispy grass while the clouds wink at you and the sun warms your bare arse?

Actually, forget it. We're trying to put the unbelievably happy yet undeniably weird feeling that Super Monkey Ball Deluxe gives you into words, and we can't. Since SMBD is such a simple game, let's put it in simple terms: it's monkeys in balls, and it's super. Oh, and it's deluxe too.

Super because the gameplay is straight from God's own big box of fun, and deluxe because us lucky Xbox owners get all the content from Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2 on GameCube, with some extra goodies chucked in on top. Yup, this is a compilation of two old 'Cube games, but don't let that put you off - it's banana-flavoured genius.

But before we start crunching numbers, let's talk about how Super Monkey Ball Deluxe actually works. Using the analogue stick, you tilt the stage so that your Monkey Ball rolls in the direction you want it to go. Get it to the Goal and you've completed the stage, and any bananas you collect along the way give you points. Fall off the stage or run out of time, and you've failed. It really is that simple.

This is the game analogue sticks were designed for - every tiny tweak elicits a teeter or a totter, and energetic prods send your simian spinning off with sparks flying. For the first 20 or so levels it's more enjoyable than petting puppies, and happier than a meerkat on stilts.

Then it gets tough. It's still fun and addictive, but now it's more like picking a scab, or tonguing a mouth ulcer - painful, but you just can't help it. Soon stages are ridiculously, unbearably, joypad-breakingly hard. It's the type of difficulty that makes you squint your eyes and lick your lips until they're dryer than a sandy flip-flop. Happily, though, you'll want to keep playing until you finally nail that dastardly stage. Just one more go. Just. One. More. Go. Suddenly it's 4am.

And there are plenty of stages to beat. Super Monkey Ball Deluxe drags 114 from the first game and 140 from the second, then bungs in more than 50 monkey-spanking new stages on top. Once you've ploughed through the main game you can also take on the new Ultimate mode, which orders every single stage in ascending order of difficulty. It's a huge challenge, and multiplayer mini-games add some awesome variety.

Okay, so it doesn't offer the same thrills as a Halo 2 plasma sword killing spree on Xbox Live, and it's essentially a Greatest Hits collection of two old GameCube games, but Super Monkey Ball Deluxe is so stuffed full of sunshine, rainbows and happiness that we don't care. If you fancy some simple, addictive, straightforward gameplay fun, you'd be monkey mad not to peel this banana of crazy genius.

1. Deliriously happy visuals, spot-on comedy sounds, and a hefty dose of Japanese mentalism makes for hardcore fun.
2. Gameplay so simple that literally anyone could get to grips with it... before you can say chimpanzee.
3. So addictive you'll be seeing monkeys in your dreams - then you'll realise you're still awake, playing Super Monkey Ball Deluxe.
4. Presents a challenge stiffer than an alpha male silverback gorilla sporting morning glory.
5. Chock-full of chunky multiplayer mini-games worth the price of admission on their own.

If you haven't sampled Super Monkey Ball's simian delights, you'd be an utter chimp to miss out on the Deluxe edition.