With the release of Donkey Kong Country for the SNES, Nintendo have effectively redefined the entire platforming genre.
The object is simple; guide Donkey Kong through dozens of levels as he collects bananas and wards off a host of enemies. Sounds familiar? Guess again, DKC as it is affectionately known, will make you rethink your platforming preconceptions.
When I first previewed this massive 32 Mbit cart at Nintendo's offices, my first reaction was to look under the television to see where they had hidden the Silicon Graphics Onyx workstation. To my surprise there was just the familiar two-tone grey SNES staring back at me.
The game has been rendered using the same advanced 3D ray-tracing techniques commonly found in films like Abyss and Terminator 2. Coupled with a smooth 4-way parallax scrolling background and some thumping sonics, DKC throws down the gauntlet to Sonic and his ilk. This cart looks and feels so good it will make even jaded gamers pick up their controllers and holler for joy as they plough through over 90 levels of photorealistic frenzy.
Some of the environment effects such as mist and shadowing are so realistic that it makes you wonder why anyone would want to upgrade to one of the newer 32-bit or 64-bit systems.
SNES owners can rejoice in the knowledge that with all the talk about the whizz-bang Project Reality, that Nintendo has not forsaken them.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1994 by Nathan Cochran for Game Bytes Magazine. All rights reserved.