Donkey Konga with Bongos [GC]

Nintendo's Donkey Konga is a rhythm game similar to the insanely popular Dance Dance Revolution. But it's more than that. It's deeper. It's harder. And in some ways, it's more rewarding. Beyond all that, it's unique and one of the most accessible and fun party games available.

Donkey Konga's drum controller is not merely one drum; it's two. And it's not merely two drums, either - it's two drums with a microphone between them. The microphone is important, because it hears when you clap your hands. And oh yes, you'll be clapping your hands, and not just because you're playing this perfect little gem of a game.

The gameplay of Donkey Konga is simple. Beat your drums or clap your hands in time with onscreen cues. A red cue indicates that you should hit the right drum. Yellow is for the left drum, pink is for both at once, and a blue star means clap your hands.

When you clap your hands, your onscreen avatar (one of the characters in the Donkey Kong universe) claps his hands, too. Simple and slick. Never mind that your character model is virtually unchanged since his 1994 world debut, and never mind that his clapping only takes up two frames of animation. Quit trying to ruin the fun.

And Donkey Konga is fun. The drum requires no sticks -- you beat it with your hands -- and has a light, fragile feel. It is absolutely imperative that you hold it in your lap: Sit down, relax, and, if you can, sit Indian-style on the floor. Take a deep breath, then go ahead and play.

Playing, basically, is what it is. You pick a song, and you play the drums. When the song is over, you pick another one. There's an arcade-ish mode, where you can play a set of songs and a versus mode, where you and a friend compete for a high score in a set of songs. Or you can just play one song at a time. In the end, if you make a high score, you can feel proud of yourself... or you can play another song. This game is purely about playing, and that's beyond groovy.

There are drum set sounds and minigames to unlock. The sets range anywhere from Latin percussion and big band, to old-school Nintendo beep-beep noises, to barking dogs, sneezing sounds, and barnyard animals. The minigames are minor solo and competitive diversions, with the most addictive being the banana juggle (left drum to shuffle bananas between hands, right drum to throw it, and clap to have more bananas added to the mix!).

The songs themselves -- 33 in total, all unlocked from the start -- are pretty surreal. On the one hand, you've got a conga mix of the original Super Mario Bros theme song. On the other hand, you've got "We Will Rock You" by Queen. The music numbers run the gamut from country to campfire songs (who could ever get tired of "Bingo?"), all of it reproduced in high-quality sound. Each song has its own difficulty ranking (ranging from easy to impossible), flavor, and personality. The selection isn't overly generous, but bear in mind that the Japanese version actually released with half the quantity!

While the game's character sprites are, as mentioned, simple 16-bit-era affairs, the graphics can be said to be perfect. They accomplish what's needed. Players can see what they're supposed to do, see how well they're doing it, and are then told how well they did. Nothing wrong with that.

Like EyeToy, Karaoke Revolution, and, of course, DDR, Donkey Konga joins the succession of great party games that introduces a new device and instantly accessible gameplay. The initial cost is a little prohibitive -- for the game and two drum sets, you're looking at $80, and then $30 for each additional set if you want to bring more players into the mix. But at a social gathering, who can put a price on such a memorable evening?