Enemies are plentiful, fast-moving and varied. The other good news for serious DKC fans is that the difficulty level doesn't appear to have been lowered just because this is a Wii game. Plenty to keep people who should probably be reading Ulysses busy. Look harder and you'll find hidden goodies, such as gold coins and K-O-N-G tokens. Levels are littered with bananas to collect and checkpoint balloons to grab before they float out of reach. Diddy Kong accompanies Donkey on his adventures, skipping and jumping around behind him.
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Otherwise, however, it's all familiar stuff.
![donkey kong country returns wii game donkey kong country returns wii game](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tAE9bJMWsu0/maxresdefault.jpg)
Perhaps the neatest new move on show involves crouching down next to a dandelion then shaking the controllers to blow away the petals. A sharp downwards jerk sends him spinning through trapdoors and into secret passages, while a quick flick left or right makes him perform a roll. Shaking the remote and nunchuk while standing on stone blocks will make Donkey Kong bash them to bits. Donkey Kong's jump has just the right amount of float, which makes bopping rows of enemies on the head just as simple and rewarding as it ever was.īut this is a Wii game, so of course there's a bit of waggling to be done. It all feels brilliantly smooth, fluid and fast. You press A to jump and use the nunchuk's analogue stick to move around. The controls are instantly familiar, even though no one could have imagined waggling was the future of gaming back when the original DKC was big. However, I managed to remember I am a grown woman and get a grip on myself and the remote and nunchuk. By the time I saw that the first option on the screen was a level titled Jungle Hijinx, I was so excited I almost had to have a sit down on one of Nintendo's blindingly white lifestyle sofas. I was even more excited as I approached the demo pod and realised the menu music was exactly the same.
![donkey kong country returns wii game donkey kong country returns wii game](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0875/3268/products/Donkey-Kong-Country-Returns-Nintendo-Wii-Game-Disc_1024x1024.jpg)
So I was excited when the DKC Returns announcement was made at Nintendo's E3 conference. Worth it for 101* per cent completion though. Not because its charming, sumptuous visuals and brilliantly balanced platforming gameplay instilled in me a profound and life-changing love of videogames, but because I spent two terms at university playing it instead of reading Ulysses, and failed to earn a good enough degree to get a proper job. The original DKC was the reason I became a games journalist. I was there with only one mission: to play Donkey Kong Country Returns. Despite failing to fit into any of these categories, but with the help of a friendly PR man, I managed to sneak behind the cordon and jump on one of the specially set aside Wii demo pods. Riccitiello should have wandered a little further into the booth, where he'd have found the cordoned-off area set aside for retailers, high-profile media types and silver-haired business executives in charge of massive third-party publishing operations.