Donkey Kong 64 Celebrates 10th Anniversary

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Details: Created on Saturday, December 5, 2009 11:00 PM PST; Written by King Mika

I'm a tad late at celebrating Donkey Kong 64's 10th anniversary but rather late than never, huh?

Donkey Kong 64 (or DK64 for short) is a platformer video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 the game was first released in the North American market on November 22, 1999, and went onto sell over 5.27 million copies worldwide.

There are a total of five playable Kongs, each with completely unique (and upgradeable) abilities: Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Tiny Kong, Lanky Kong and Chunky Kong. My favorite Kong is Diddy.

The first thing that came to my mind when I thought of "DK64" is "Expansion Pak" because the game was the first to use and require the RAM upgrade that lead to enhanced graphics and larger environments.

The second thing that came to my mind when I thought of "DK64" is the "DK rap" as heard below:

The third thing that came to my mind when I thought of "DK64" is "mini-games," because unlike games like Banjo-Kazooie that focused on platforming as its main feature, Donkey Kong 64 was heavy on the mini-games and because the mini-games are fun that's a good thing.

My memories about "DK64" are great so far but did it stand the test of time? You bet! Unlike games such as Perfect Dark that has a sloppy frame rate, DK64 runs smooth. I'm so darn used to them here fancy speedy computers, and Nintendo's current games running in 60fps, that I can't stand playing N64 games with a low frame rate despite being able to before.

I've been playing so many serious games recently that I forgot about the simple times of being an ape and playing mini-games to earn a bananas.

Overall Donkey Kong 64 wasn't a pioneer in gaming like Donkey Kong Country was, but it presented a memorable game that I can still have fun playing even 10 years from its release!

Starting at the end of this week I'm going to start declaring the best of Donkey Kong 64 in a series of editions of "The Best" so be sure to visit daily to see what's the cream of the crop!