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Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
It’s Coming to Wii

Nintendo news channels have been reporting that Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, one of the GameCube’s most underrated and fun games, is making its way to the Wii in the near future.

If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s a side-scrolling platformer with three-dimensional graphics. Oh, and it’s controlled by bongos. JUST bongos. You hit the right bongo and Donkey Kong moves right. You hit the left one and he moves left. Hit both at the same time and he’ll jump with the momentum of whatever direction you’ve had him running in. Clapping makes Kong clap, which is a useful move for stunning enemies and grabbing bananas.

Michael Pugliese turned me onto Jungle Beat years ago, when we both worked for the company we met at. He was the only other huge gamer at the office and we’d talk daily about gaming and about how we should start a site together (we did – see?!). He would rave on and on about how different but intuitive the controls were, and this was before those words were being tossed around to describe the Wii. This was, after all, before the Wii existed.

I received the game for my birthday not long after that, as I had put it on my wishlist. Although I’ve never finished the game, I have played it a lot, opting instead to replay early stages since they’re easier. Jungle Beat is a lot of fun, but playing for an extended period of time would get tiresome. Just think of all the drumming needed to walk through a level and defeat bosses! It is, however, an amazing game and one I still keep in my library. Of course, I keep everything, so maybe that’s not the best form of praise to use.

With the game coming to the Wii, obviously some stuff will need to be changed. But as strenuous as it could be, I will still always prefer playing Jungle Beat with the controller it was designed for: the bongos.

Posted in Awesome, Editorial, GameCube, Wii |