There is certainly room on the Wii for another polished arcade-racing game to complement Mario Kart Wii, but unfortunately Donkey Kong: Jet Race is not it. Jet Race feels more like an experiment that didn’t work out as well as it sounded in concept, because despite all its content and the obvious effort that went into making it, it’s a bit of a chore to play.

A tear for the untimely demise of the bongo drums

Donkey Kong: Jet Race is an on-rails racer, which means you don’t really steer, you just move from left to right on the track while the game steers you around the course automatically (a little like Kirby: Air Ride on the GameCube). To move to the right you shake the Wii Remote and to move to the left you shake the Nunchuk (unless you’re left-handed, then you can swap them around). Donkey Kong (or whoever of the DK menagerie you have selected as your character) wears a pair of rocket-drums which somehow steer him in the direction of the drum he hits. It’s painfully obvious that the original intention was to utilize the bongo drums on the GameCube, and it’s also sad that you can’t use them as a control method in the game even though they are compatible with the Wii. If you whack both drums at once by shaking the Wii Remote and Nunchuk at the same time DK will jump into the air, useful to avoid obstacles or reach bananas floating above you. Of course, you’re always trying to collect bananas – DK can never seem to get enough potassium. But there is a method to his madness - collect enough bananas and he can turbo-boost for a limited period (I guess the rocket-drums are fueled by potassium). While you’re boosting the idea is to crash into barrels and other breakable obstacles to build up a move combo and so to lengthen the boost period. This is essentially how you win, since cornering skills are kind of thrown out the window when you’re on rails.

Note: we’re not literally on rails – there aren’t rail tracks in the game except every now and then when you’re literally on rail tracks, but generally you’re just figuratively on-rails, meaning when you go around a corner the turn happens for you and you could finish a race in your sleep, although you won’t do very well because you haven’t collected bananas and boosted your way into first place.

Shaky controls, in every sense

The problem with the racing is not the on-rails bit, it’s the wishy-washy, contrived controls, the lack of a sense of speed and the blandness of the gameplay. Shaking the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to steer and to accelerate when you should be hitting the bongos makes everything feel wrong. And even with so little to do (move left or move right, maybe jump once in a while) it’s hard to miss obstacles because of the lack of precision in the controls – how far does one shake move DK? And two? And is an up-down shake two shakes or one? Do bigger shakes move DK over more than smaller shakes do? Obviously you do get more used to the control system over time (inasmuch as your arms get tired), but an analog stick would have been a much better solution once the bongos were dropped – at least the bongos would have matched the on-screen animation and been fun in their own right. Because of the loose controls the speed of the racing is not very fast and oftentimes feels downright labored. It’s only when you’re boosting that there is any sense of speed and then you realize just how difficult it is to get DK to go where you want him to because you can’t shake the Wii Remote fast enough.

Part of the problem of Donkey Kong: Jet Race is that it is up against a superb character-based arcade racing game in Mario Kart Wii, and it’s impossible to even recommend it for a change of pace because you’ll be bored within a few hours. I commend Nintendo for attempting an alternative control scheme but it’s safe to say that for racing games this one doesn’t work. I also commend Paon for trying to create something that isn’t derivative of Mario Kart Wii, but sadly most of the fun was thrown out in the process.

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