My return to the plastic jungle

Dr. Kong I presume?

It has been a while since I last visited the DK family and their pre-rendered home. Some things have changed since then. It turns out the wonderful plastic jungle is no longer run by the British gentlemen over at Rare. Instead it has been taken over by a bunch of Texans from Retro Studios, mostly known for their work on abandoned space stations. Also the jungle doesn’t seem quite as plastic as before, probably due to it now being rendered in real time by the little white box underneath my TV.

Some things on the other hand have been left unchanged. Besides the camera still being stuck in a side-view angle, the monkeys still prefer to travel in groups of two (this time with Diddy riding on Donkeys back) and their affinity for riding around on Rhinos appear unchanged. Also there are a lot of money being launched out of explosive barrels and highly dangerous minecart rides as well as the famous (some would say excessive) collectathon everyone loved to hate in the Rare games. There are K-O-N-G letters, hidden puzzle pieces, large coins and bananas to collect.

So even if the talented Texans went along and changed around some things, I still felt very much at home in the plastic jungle with my hairy friends.