Donkey Kong: Barrel Blast

If the inconsistent controls aren't enough to steer you away from this fifth-rate Mario Kart clone, the frustrating AI and total lack of personality probably will.

If DK Barrel Blast would have released well over a year ago on GameCube like it was supposed to the title might have had a chance at being remotely entertaining. After some seriously basic motion control, the removal of bongo support (even for those that already invested in the accessory), and some quick Mii integration the game has become a garbled mess of slow racing, shallow gameplay, and an overall boring experience.

Not very appealing, with impractical and tiresome controls, excessive repetition of scenery and short lifespan, Jet Race is way far from Nintendo’s standards.

Although Nintendo and Paon must be applauded for trying to do something innovative, a racer like this simply does not work with a rhythm based control scheme. Those Wii owners looking for a quality racing title would be better off waiting until next year for Mario Kart Wii.

Judged against what's already available for Wii for those with access to the Virtual Console, it's hard to imagine anyone choosing Barrel Blast over the superior Virtual Console game.

A game so bad, it brings shame upon Donkey Kong and his entire family. [JPN Import; Oct 2007, p.60]

In plenty of cases, the system has done a great job at reducing the barrier of the controller, making it easier to interact with games thanks to simple motion controls. In a game like Barrel Blast, however, it's added a whole lot of complexity -- not to mention physical exhaustion -- to what would otherwise be simple steering controls.

Barrel Blast is an abortive and uncannily anachronistic attempt at a character racer with impossible controls, dreadful, imbalanced AI and boring design. It's not even worth the hour of your time that it takes to get completely sick of it.

Quite simply the worst game to bear the Nintendo logo in a generation or two. [Feb 2008, p.78]

The fairly generic presentation and cheating AI could be overlooked if the core gameplay was great, but it's not. The motion sensitive controls are fiddly and at times completely broken, making Jet Race mildly fun for about an hour at most.

Donkey Kong was Nintendo’s original big baddie. He’s now been reduced to an inanity-grunting, tie-wearing corporate wuss, shilling lacklustre knock-offs of games his mortal adversary in Mario aced the market with. It’s time to stand up and fight! Don’t support this emasculation of a – perhaps THE - classic arcade bad dude.

It's impossibly hard to like Donkey Kong Barrel Blast; it's fundamentally flawed from the start. The Wii-waggle controls hope to compensate for what is otherwise a poorly designed Mario Kart wannabe, but it all backfires – they're the game's leading failure.

Donkey Kong Jet Race is yet another example of the uneventful consequences of uninspired motion controls.

Sense of speed is way too slow; items are useless; racing is clumsy.

Graphically the game would have been very impressive, if it was a launch game for the GameCube.

If you belong to that weird subset of racing game fans who feel their life won't be complete till there's a game that enables you to race around the sky using a control method inspired by a love of percussion instruments then you may possibly eek an evening's worth of entertainment out of this, if you're forgiving. For the rest of us there's nothing to see here, keep on walking, someone will be along soon to sweep up the mess.

Level design is bland, weapons are bland, control is a novelty at best and irritating at worst. As a free Wii launch pack-in meant to familiarize people with Remote/nunchuk controls, this game might have gotten a pass. Right now the only thing it gets is a big thumbs-down.