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Tuesday 12 February, 2008
Game play:
As Donkey and Diddy move out of the first world (which is where they are from), and into new worlds the tone of the game changes. Much like it would be if you left your home town into new places, these to experience the same thing. The game is more frustrating at points, but just as much fun as it was in the beginning when you conquer a level. So far the hardest have been water levels, where you need to swim around and avoided predators, or you can defeat them using DK’s friends.
Your allies in the game world are extremely helpful at points, and although they are not necessary to defeat levels, they make it much easier. You unlock them by jumping on boxes and they act as sort of an extra life, where if you are hit by an enemy, you just lose your friend, and you are not killed.
Overall this was a very fun game to play, the fun soundtrack and atmosphere created a feeling that is different than what you experience from any other game. Even though the game was tough, and extremely frustrating at some points, it was still a lot of fun and I would highly recommended it to any age group.
Game design:
The level design in this game is different than any other game that I have played. The story is based on an island that has several different areas on it called “worlds.” Each world has a particular theme, new bad guys, and a final boss that must be defeated to unlock the next world. This is a cool version of spatial segmentation because I am not usually the kind of gamer that likes to find stuff in big maps, and have to retrace your steps if you forgot something. I like the straight forward, “hear is a level, get to the end of it” idea.
When you unlock a new world, you start over from scratch, with nothing but the remaining lives you had from the previous world. So there is no way to save your progression other than by unlocking new save points, which can only be done by beating however many levels there are before the next point. This can be a particularly frustrating dilemma if you defeat a boss from a world with only a few remaining lives, then have to beat the next few levels with only one or two lives. And if you lose, you have to go back to the previous world and do it all over again. However, new lives can be achieved easily by collecting 100 bananas, or by finding life balloons.
With the combination of its creativity, simplicity and enjoyment, Donkey Kong Country easily makes it on my top 10 favorite games ever played.
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