Donkey Kong

"It's been a long time since I chased a giant monkey..."

...and my God how I've missed it. Forget this game's pretty shallow, somewhat fun cousins on the SNES and N64- Donkey Kong never got any better than this game. And as a diehard Zelda fan, it pains me to say that this little gem nearly trounces Link's Awakening for the title of greatest Game Boy game ever.

Remember back in the 80s, when all you had to do to kill a mischievous ape and rescue ytour girlfriend was drop said primate off an under-construction high-rise? Things have changed since then, and now all you're doing is pissing the monkey off, prompting him to run off into the streets with your girl. The first four stages play out like the old arcade game, and then the real deal begins.

While the first four stages (naturally) test your arcade skills of coordination and speed, the remaining ninety or so stages will test your brain power. You're placed on a single board, with a locked door and a key. All you have to do is pick up the key and take it to the door, without getting killed along the way by one of the dozens of maliciously designed traps and enemies, and without being driven insane by the at-times ingenious puzzles. (The elevator/lever puzzle in the desert had me tearing my hair out.)

Mario has a wide assortment of acrobatic maneuvers to guide him through danger, like flips, handstands and the precursor to Mario 64's triple-jump. You'll be especially needful of these every fourth stage- these are the boss levels, which will either have you merely attempting to run a gauntlet and catch up to DK (like in the arcade, if ships, ships, airplanes, forests, deserts, mountains, icebergs, and jungles were included in the arcade), or to snag some barrels and bash the poor critter's head in three times, forcing him to run to fight another day.

Sound hard? Actually, it's not. If you manage to collect a phone, parasol, and hat before completing a stage, you'll be taken to a bonus round where you complete for extra lives- and one of the two variations on this bonus round is impossible to lose. The net result is that it's nearly impossible to run out of lives (I've yet to see the ''Game Over'' screen), and you soon learn that the these extra collectibles aren't worth the time and risk.

The sound and graphics aren't exactly stellar- this is the Game Boy after all, though the color version is palatable. But the meat of the cart is in its gameplay, and on the Game Boy at least, meat doesn't come any finer or more tender than this.

Throwing barrels at monkeys. Killer turtles and plants. Mushrooms and flowers that give you special powers. no wonder so many moralists hate video games. A Shigeru Miyamoto game is about as hallucinogenic as entertainment can be.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/15/02, Updated 06/15/02