Bishi Bashi Cathee Monkee.
By NBCL

Monkeys are ace. They're a bit like a fearless hairy human that jumps around a lot. So, like your average four-year-old then. But, er, with more hair, obviously. Either way, it comes as no surprise that the furiously-masturbating Nintendo mascot is rearing his head (no, the other one) again for one of those sequel things.

One day, apparently, whilst walking down the beach Donkey Kong stumbled across a pair of barrels. He looooves barrels. They later transpire to be legendary bongos that not only make bongo sounds but react to the sound of handclaps (and perhaps The Clap – if it has a sound). Donkey Kong then has the brainwave of becoming a professional busker to finance his banana habit, presumably so he can spend the rest of his days in a penthouse apartment throwing televisions out of windows. And masturbating.

Fuck the bongos, if you need me, I’ll be spanking the monkey.

Donkey Konga 2 places you loosely in the place of the simian fiend. He's set up ready for busking, and the basic premise is that you control his actions on the bongos with the included bongo controller. These things are brilliant, they're dinky, responsive and yet they really will withstand a hammering from your average monkey, uh, four-year-old. Either way, your commands are limited to left bongo, right bongo, both bongos, and clap. Busk along to the songs and hit the appropriate bit of bongo in time with what's on your telly. The more accurate you are, the more money you earn.

It's much like your bog-standard rhythm game but thankfully doesn't require you to take yourself seriously doing it. It's a great, fat, cheesy-grin-inducing stupidfest, and if the idea of playing along to "Mr. Bombastic" by Shaggy doesn't even raise a little wry smile then you are dead from the inside out.

“Zoinks Scoob, I’m, like, Boombastic! Aha-hahahah!”
“Ruh?”

The main bulk of the game is Street Performance. Pick a song from three difficulty levels and bongo away to it – good timing is rewarded with the building of a combo, and also with coins - use those to buy the right to play the hardest tracks. Having to pay for the difficult tracks is a really good idea for first-timers, as it stops you inadvertently picking a load of ridiculously difficult tracks in a row and then giving up in disgust. You have to EARN the right to play... unfortunately, if you were any good at the original Donkey Konga then you'll breeze through the first two sets of songs first time and then be left with not enough money to buy all the difficult tracks.

This brings with it the sad realisation that Donkey Konga 2 really is nothing more than an expansion pack... most interested people will have snapped up the original Donkey Konga and played it to death – and while Nintendo promised a "Magical Bongo Adventure" for this iteration, it just hasn't happened. What we're left with is more songs.

It’s a magical Bongo adventure!

Pity Paul Fucking Daniels has to ruin it.

Your progress is monitored by an old 80's style LED setup – good accuracy and timing will raise the meter whilst being crap will lower it. Get it past the clear mark and you, uh, clear the level: get it to the top, and you earn a gold medal. Thankfully, achieving this feat doesn't involve hitting every single note perfectly, but it's still pretty challenging.

When you manage that, you're gifted with the "Beat-Mix" mode for the track you've just beaten. This replaces the rubbish invisible mode from Donkey Konga – Beat-Mix involves the same rhythms but not necessarily the same actions. It can lead to some incredibly un-natural and disconcerting tracks, and is actually surprisingly good fun. Also of note are the mini-games – thankfully the distinctly average ones from the first game have been ditched, and replaced with Beat Race and Rhythm Keeper. Beat Race is a mad dash to play a series of 40-200 notes as fast as possible, and Rhythm Keeper... well, guess.

Left – clap – right – clap – wank.

There is the option to have up to four people playing at once, but it really hasn't been capitalised on very well – for the most part, tracks are pretty sparse as the standard parts are divided up between all four players. Again, it just feels slightly bolted on – definitely a good idea to keep more people occupied at one time, but nothing is really added to the game itself.

Overall, it's an excellent game, but not really worth it if you've already got the first one – unless, that is, you have a soft spot for some of the tracks on this edition. If you're new to this Donkey Konga business, I'd probably recommend this one over the original on the strength of the tracklisting and mini-games, but there's really not much to choose between them.

You need one of them, though. You really do.

July 2005

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