(I haven’t had nearly enough coffee lately, so if I aimlessly ramble more than usual today, you know why.)
Everybody loves monkeys. Don’t deny it. And lucky enough for us gamers, we’ve gotten plenty of monkey love over the years. Yeah, I know that sounded disgusting.
We’ll start with the undisputed king of the jungle: Donkey Kong. Aside from his first game being a starting point for another video game hero (Mario), it raised the bar for platforming games. The influence of this game is easily seen in any other game where you move from platform to platform, dodging incoming objects. Donkey Kong was the bad guy, but eventually, Mario captured him and threw his ass in a cage. Enter DK’s kid, Junior. Even more platforming goodness ensued as Junior swung from vine to vine, all in the name of springing his old man outta jail.
DK and friends showed up in a few more arcade games, but they really came back into the spotlight with the release of the Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES. The DK in these games is actually DK Jr. all grown up, and Cranky Kong (the old fart) is the original DK! Neat, huh? Anyways, the DK Country games were pure platforming goodness. DK also showed up in Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, and Super Smash Bros. just to name a few. He’s doing quite well for himself indeed. Even his sidekick, Diddy Kong, has had some games of his own.
Video game monkeys are not limited to DK alone. Everyone’s favorite robotic hero Mega Man has faced mecha-monkeys on more than one occasion, especially in the latest game, Mega Man X7; one of the bosses is a giant gorilla, wielding a stone sword and shield. (In more sickening detail, the folks at Capcom gave him a bright red shiny metal baboon ass.) On the puzzle front, we’ve got Ai-Ai and crew in the Super Monkey Ball series. I don’t see how one could tire of rolling a monkey around various levels, making sure the little f*ckers don’t drop like stones. Then there’s the ever-popular Ape Escape games, where you get to net the little chimps; or, if you live in Japan, you can vaccuum their pants off. I’m not kidding. Video games are weird in Japan.
So what’s on the horizon for those lovable simians? Well, there’s Mario Kart: Double Dash!! for starters. DK and Diddy Kong have their own kart; see, in this game, one character drives, and the other one handles the attacks. Diddy hangs off the back of DK’s kart and deals out the punishment. But here’s what I don’t understand: Diddy’s often throwing bananas at enemies. Shouldn’t he be flinging feces? That’s what monkeys do, after all. It would make the game more accurate, and a hell of a lot funnier. C’mon, you’d die laughing if you saw Mario get “shitfaced.”