Hands on With Jenga Donkey Kong Collector's Edition

Among the game related things that found their way to my door step while I was gone was the new Donkey-Kong-themed edition of Jenga. Jenga Donkey Kong Collector’s Edition is essentially the wood stacking game painted black with a new set of rules. The version comes with a pile of rectangular blocks painted black with red girders painted on two sides of each block. There are also three holes drilled into each rectangle. The game also comes with four plastic Mario pieces, a plastic piece featuring Donkey Kong and Pauline and a little cardboard spinner. You can play the game with normal Jenga rules, pulling out a piece of wood to replace at the top of the stack until someone knocks it over, or with the new DK rules. The Donkey Kong rules add enough of a twist to the classic game to make it bit more fun and of course, what with the neato pixel graphics, quite a bit more nostalgic.The new rules have you place a peg-backed Mario piece into a hole of one of the bottom Jenga pieces. Once everyone has placed their Marios you take turns flicking the spinner. The spinner tells you how many girders to move as you make your way up and around the Jenga tower. It also tells you how many girders you have to slide out of the stack and place back on top. Removing and replacing the pieces is just like classic Jenga, except you have to remove and replace the Donkey Kong piece as well, making sure he and Pauline are always at the highest point of the tower. The spinner tells you to move zero to three spaces and to remove zero to three pieces. To win you have to either move your Mario to the top of the tower, or be the highest Mario on the tower when someone else knocks the tower down. Fairly simple, but quite a bit of fun. We played the game two or three times last night and really enjoyed it. The only problem we had with the game is that the plastic pieces were a bit wonky. The pegs on the backs of the Mario sometimes didn’t slide into the Jenga holes, which makes the game near impossible to play until you’ve worn the game in. Also the spinner didn’t really spin, but again that got better with use. I’m a big fan of classic video games and I happen to love Jenga, so this would be a must by for me. With the holidays nearing I’d say it probably should make some wish lists if you’re a fan of either the video or table top game.