Those that ever played Donkey Kong Country will immediately see the influences the franchise had on Jungle Beat. The story, however, has the typical Nintendo style, the Donkey Kong empire has been attacked by the rulers of other fruit empires and they've stolen all bananas. Donkey Kong is therefore forced to get his favorite food back and restore his honor. This is done jumping and slinging through level with an occasional hostile in the form of ninja apes, bores, birds and large automated artilleries of elephants.

The game is a typical platformer that's playable for all ages but difficult to master. This all thanks to an ingenious combo system that doubles your amount of bananas as you link more moves and jumps. When touching the ground these get added to your total but when you hit a hostile you'll loose all bananas you gathered in your combination.

The four year old Gamecube version was played with the accompanying bongo. Despite the well-balanced gameplay and the good critics from press - the game got a nice 83% from Fragland - the sales figures remained mediocre. Luckily the game gets a second chance in the New Play Control series for the Nintendo Wii.

There are some changes compared to the original like the sound waves Donkey Kong produces to knock out his enemies which are no longer circle-shaped but need to be aimed with the analog stick. The levels and enemies are adjusted or moved to make the playing with Wii-more and Nunchuck more pleasant and Donkey Kong no longer loses bananas when he's hit but a little heart of which he's got three in total. Once you've lost all of these you get to start all over again.

Although this is a remake of a four year old game it's still graphically pretty good. The details on the characters and the vivid background are high, the movements are fluid and the framerate is a constant value throughout the game. Rarely the Wii displayed such beautiful graphics on the screen. This must make the face of other devs turn red of shame...

The transfer from Gamecube to Wii has both positive and negative points. The controls with the Nunchuck's analog stick are a lot more precise and easy than the bongo some years ago. It almost suggests that the game is a lot easier this way and also the feeling of satisfaction is less. During the boss fights hitting the bongos hard gave a great feeling but this is gone with the new playing method. Newcomers, however, will never experience these shortcomings as the motion controls work perfectly in this title.

The biggest problem with the game remains the lifespan. Those that don't pay attention to the amount of bananas gathered will fly through it in a small 4 hours. Those that do want to get as many yellow fruits as possible will be rewarded with crests that give access to secret zones which enormously prolong the lifespan of the game but I guess over 90% of the players couldn't care less about that.