Music-themed video games are slowly embedding themselves in America’s gaming culture – Konami has gamers sweating up a storm with “Dance Dance Revolution” and assaulting eardrums with “Karaoke Revolution.” Nintendo’s “Donkey Konga,” for GameCube, is the latest entry to the craze. Using a “Donkey Kong Country” theme, off-the-wall tracklist and bongo drum set, “Konga” serves up enough value to please musical newbies and hardcore music game fans alike.
The game’s premise is nothing revolutionary: Gamers drum on bongos or clap according to the music and on-screen scrolling chart during each song. Up to four players can battle at once, making for a primitive cacophony worthy of the ape-men from “2001: A Space Odyssey” when a player gets his partners offbeat.
Part of the attraction of rhythm games is the funky peripherals they often ship with. “Konga” uses a pair of bongos to test gamer’s rhythm, complete with a microphone to register claps. Though only having two drums is limiting – Konami’s “Drummania” series uses five, plus a pedal – the simplicity keeps it accessible for gamers with less eye-hand-ear coordination.
Features, good songs and a cool-looking drum kit are worthless without a fun game engine to back them up, and “Konga” definitely succeeds through its pick-up-and-play feel. The game is self-explanatory and will appeal to people not yet sold on the rhythm craze and its fun multiplayer options give Nintendo another winner.
The tracklist is the most bizarre yet seen in the genre. The list of about 30 songs hops from rock – Queen, Devo, Blink 182 – to swing and classical, to the Happy Birthday song and “Row, row, row your boat,” to Nintendo rap (“This Kong’s so strong, it isn’t funny! Can make a Kremling cry out for Mummy!”). It might sound like a disaster on paper, but “Konga” makes it work – many of the songs are re-recorded with a “jungle” feel, so the game gains a cohesiveness and spice it might have lacked. However, “DK Rap” has been and will always be wretched. (The Kirby jazzy track is surprisingly catchy, though.) The “Legend of Zelda” and “Super Mario Bros.” themes are bonuses for long-time Nintendo fans, too.
Many of songs have simple-to-moderate “beat charts,” so beginners can jump in and learn the basic mechanics right away. However, for music games to truly become popular, they need a high difficulty ceiling so players have a reason to keep playing – if someone can get a perfect score on songs after a couple hours of play, the game has “rental” written all over it (for instance, in “DDR,” only one person in the world claims to have completely perfected the hardest song). Fortunately “Konga” provides a challenge with its unlockable “Gorilla” versions of songs, and with the smorgasbord-like tracklist, players will be busy for a long time.
The single-player mode is a way to unlock coins used to buy hidden extras, which is a must for any music game to provide for hours of replay value. Some of the unlocks are as off-kilter as the tracklist, offering prizes like new sound effects in addition to harder song versions.
Witnessing four drummer-wannabes rocking out to a samba-flavored “Super Mario Bros.” theme is not an experience that comes often in a gaming generation of high technology but less innovation and risk. “Konga” is a solid debut for Nintendo’s first venture into the genre, and Nintendo already has further plans for its bongo controller. The groundwork has been laid for another successful franchise.
