Donkey Kong Jet Race

Probably the worst Donkey Kong game ever.

	Version Wii	Developer Nintendo	Publisher Nintendo	Genre Racing

By Kikizo Staff

This is barely worth reviewing, such is the nature of the cynicism on show in Donkey Kong Jet Race. It's a horrible, disgusting cash-in targeting the poor young kids who all love the Wii so much, along with their gullible parents who have never played a real game before in their lives.

We love Donkey Kong. We love that he was the first proper video games character that made Nintendo what it is today. We love Donkey Kong Country on the SNES and everything that Rare did to make him one of the coolest icons of 1990s gaming. We love his pals like Diddy Kong who show up in all the Nintendo character games like Mario Kart. And we can't get enough of the barrels. Donkey Kong has the best barrels.

But the characters are the only good thing about this game, and unless you're buying Wii games just for their box art, this is definitely a no-go.

This is one of those games that was originally in development for the GameCube. This one was suppoed to use the bongo drums featured in Donkey Konga and the rather ace Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (which, we like to remind people at any given opportunity, this site first revealed the existence of) for the system. On the Wii, unfortunately, it has wound up as one of the most turgid kinds of garbage.

The first disappointing item of note is that this is pretty much an on-rails affair, but worse that that is that the game actually requires you to drum with the Wii remote and Nunchuck, as if the game was still being played on the bongos. The speed with which you're required to do this is capped, fortunately, but at the same time the overall speed of the race is painfully slow, only ever increasing for small bursts when you get a banana power up and hit barrels.

There's literally just no point, and to make matters worse the control system itself is unresponsive and frustrating. The weapons are all dull and pretty useless, and never required to actually win. What might help to win a race would be computer opponents that don't subscribe to the most blatant AI cheating school of game design.

There are some fairly pretty environments, and a few different modes to play around with, but the game is just so seriously dull and flawed that not even the youngest of gamers should be insulted with it. Just wait for Mario Kart on the Wii instead, as it's bound to be awesome.