"Put your hands together if you want to clap, as we take you through this fun-ky rap! HUH! D. K.! Donkey Kong! He's the leader of the bunch. You know him well. He's finally back to kick some tail! His coconut gun can fire in spurts. If he shoots ya, it's gonna..."

Whoah! Didn't see you there. I was just...umm...Donkey Kong gangsta rapping! Anyway, I've been pretty psyched about Nintendo's Donkey Kong Jungle Beat for the Nintendo GameCube, and after finally getting my banana-smeared mitts onto it I'm happy to say that it's a marvelous platform game that's worthy of your time, not only because it provides you with a quality workout but also because it's a great platform game that manages to stand out from the pack.

Jungle Beat's a side-scrolling platform game where you, as Donkey Kong, must leap, swing, swim, ride, pummel, and slide your way through numerous fruit kingdoms (yes, I said fruit kingdoms) in an effort to reacquire stolen merchandise (as in bananas, strawberries, and oranges) from the evil clutches of various boss characters known as kings. With that being said, what you'll do in Jungle Beat isn't that dissimilar from what you may have done in those old Donkey Kong Country games. You're still collecting bananas (though in a unique twist, your banana count represents your life bar), riding on animals, and breaking things, but it's how you complete the tasks that make the game so cool. Using Nintendo's bongo controllers (the same ones that you play Donkey Konga with), you move DK around the game world by pounding the drums or clapping. For example, if you want to move him right you tap the right bongo however fast you want (because the faster you tap the quicker he moves), and if you want to go left you simply pound the left bongo. To jump you hit both drums, and to grab onto things or affect the environment you clap. It's really that simple, but the control scheme takes something that may be considered dry and transforms it into this new and exciting gameplay experience. Suddenly what would normally be a dry platform game becomes the kind of thing you break out at parties.

The kingdoms in the game aren't really all that enormous though there is a whole bunch of them, and in order to access some you'll need to achieve a specific amount of crests that are rewarded to you primarily based on the amount of bananas you've collected. This system winds up giving Jungle Beat a decent amount of replay value, not only because you'll need those precious Bronze, Silver, and Gold crests to unlock new levels, but also to best your previous scores by going back and beating the areas multiple times.

While there are a host of areas and challenges that the game throws at you there's nothing particularly difficult about them. Since bananas are plentiful it's easy keeping your life bar full, and while the game's bosses (known as kings), are fun to beat down (my favorite is the "street fight" of sorts with an angry gorilla), they aren't all that challenging, especially since you run across them in future kingdoms, and while they have new attacks, they're not necessarily stronger. However, I really don't have any issues with the game's difficulty because Jungle Beat is such a cool experience and there are so many levels that you really don't notice that you're blazing through it.

Nintendo really did a nice job with Jungle Beat's graphics. While not as genre-defining as the original Donkey Kong Country's were, this game is loaded with all sorts of cool special effects, the most impressive being DK's fur shading. The rest of the character models are equally eye-catching, resembling plastic toys instead of the pixilated messes of the past.

Environment diversity is also a key to why Jungle Beat's graphics shine. It's difficult to become bored with the scenery because it's constantly changing. One minute you're swinging on vines in a jungle and the next you're swimming in the ocean or sliding down a snow-covered mountain, and I love what happens whenever you beat a level. At the end there are these enormous strawberries, oranges, and bananas, among other fruits, and to officially complete a course you must leap onto them and take a huge bite, whereupon which this gush of juice bursts forth.

Diversity also applies to Jungle Beat's gameplay, which is largely varied. There's the usual on foot side scrolling stuff, but DK can also use animals to get around. I'm particularly fond of Orco the killer whale, but there are also rams, birds, and other creatures to partner up with.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat's a cool platform game with a unique gimmick, and although it really doesn't pose too much of a challenge (though the hand eye coordination with the bongos is a challenge all by itself), it's so much fun to play that the difficultly level isn't much of a concern. It's a pure and good gameplay experience, and if Nintendo's smart we'll see some sequels in the very near future.