DK Jungle Climber

• System: Nintendo DS
• Game Type: Adventure
• Difficulty: Medium

• Controls are awesome
• Tons of fun items to collect
• Amazing ongoing tutorial

• It's pretty easy to lose a life
• Hard to collect every item in each level
• Tricky to find your way in some maze levels

DK and friends are preparing for some rest and relaxation on a sunny island beach when they notice a gigantic banana floating over the top of a hill. Determined to get their hands on it, they set off toward it, and accidentally stumble into a lot more adventure than they bargained for!

Bananas are a recurring theme in this monkey mayhem - not only do you need to grab as many as you can to earn extra lives, but five Crystal Bananas are the ultimate treasure. These precious artifacts have been stolen from an alien by the Kremlings, and it's up to DK and friends to help the alien get them back. Oh, did we mention that the alien looks like a banana, and has a giant banana spaceship? Yeah, there's a LOT of bananas in this game.

Once you give the talking banana your pledge to help, you'll be off on an insane island-hopping mission with DK and company. In each mini-level, there'll be a huge pile of items for you to collect. You'll be looking for all the letters in the word "KONG," as well as huge DK coins, gems, fuel cans and, of course, bananas. When you have enough fuel, Funky Kong will be able to fly you to the next island in his airplane, where you'll continue your pursuit. At the end of each main level, you'll battle with a Kremling boss, until you finally come face to face with King K. Rool himself.

Most of your movements will be controlled by the L and R buttons, which feels kind of awkward and funny to begin with, but ends up making your moves feel ultra-realistic. You see, you'll be using DK's hands to climb, swing and spin in circles around various pegs and handholds, and the L and R buttons control each of his hands. The use of the shoulder controls make DK's basic movements feel surprisingly natural - you'll actually kind of feel like you're climbing as you left-right, left-right your way up a wall.

Donkey Kong is your main man - um, monkey - but fun-loving Diddy Kong will be along for the ride to help you. After finding him in a barrel, you'll carry him piggyback until you need him and then you'll launch him like a tiny missile! He can grab items that are too high for you to reach and bash through far-off foes. He can also do incredibly useful things like swing around a huge mallet, clearing your surroundings of enemies.

There's a lot to learn and a ton of skills to master, but Jungle Climber has one of the best and most entertaining tutorials we've seen. New items and new skills are introduced slowly as the game progresses, giving you time to learn about them and serving up fun ways to try them out. Grandfatherly Cranky Kong will give you most of your lessons, and at any time in the game, you'll always be able to go back to review what he and other characters have taught you.

As you play, you'll unlock new mini-games in Challenge mode, where you can practice DK's individual skills and go for your personal best scores. You'll also be able to take on up to four friends over the DS wireless connection using a single game cartridge. But the game's biggest fun is definitely in single-player Adventure mode, where the zany levels and the constant flow of crazy new skills will keep you coming back for more. All right, we'll say it: You'll go bananas!