Game of the Week #32

[Metal Mario]

Donkey Kong 64 (N64, 1999)



King K. Rool has plans to destroy Donkey Kong Island with his new Blast-O-Matic war machine; the thing breaks down, however, and, in order to buy the repairmen some time, K. Rool kidnaps four of the Kongs and steals DK's entire hoard of Golden Bananas (all 201 of them). Now it's up to Donkey Kong to save his friends, recover his prized food supply, and teach K. Rool a lesson he'll never forget.

A 3D follow-up to the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on Super NES, Donkey Kong 64 is a huge and comprehensive platformer with sprawling environments, enormous bosses, and five playable heroes. There are mine carts to ride, there are bonus games to play, there's a multiplayer mode, and they even included ports of classic games Donkey Kong and Jetpac (the latter being one of Rare's earliest computer games, and quite possibly the reason why DK64 has yet to become available on the Wii's Virtual Console).

DK 64 was released to generally positive reviews and went on to become a million-seller, though it does bear criticism to this day for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it wasn't as revolutionary or as awe-inspiring as its Super NES predecessors; in fact, it bears a more than passing resemblance to Rare's own Banjo-Kazooie. Also, if you don't like collect-a-thons, you probably won't like this game, as there's a lot of stuff to pick up on the way to the final showdown with K. Rool; Golden Bananas, regular Bananas, Banana Coins, Banana Medals, Banana Fairies, Battle Crowns, Crystal Coconuts, and the list goes on.

And then......................there's the infamous DK Rap!!!!!!!!

Click to view video.

[Valigarmander]

Replayed last year. It wasn't that good a game.

[Metal Mario]

I guess I'm kind of crazy, but I've replayed this game several times, getting 101% each time.

But then, I do like collect-a-thons........