Nester64x: Nester in the Mist

Nester heads deep into the heart of darkness in the name of science.

By Nester64x. Posted 11/19/2010 10:00 3 Comments     ShareThis

Nester64x Issue 24

This piece is a fanboy satire. The views and opinions expressed herein do not state or reflect those of Nintendojo or any of its affiliates.

I have a major case of monkey fever! Thankfully it has nothing to do with those crazy monkeys from that Michael Crichton book and has more to do with my recent obsession with our simian friends. It started with a totally sweet documentary on Jane Goodall that aired during a particularly awesome PBS fund drive– that’s right, PBS rocks you hozers) and came to a head with my frothing excitement for Donkey Kong Country Returns. Naturally, I had no choice but to give in to my interest de jeur and conduct an intensive array of experiments with the great apes of the world to see how accurately Nintendo has portrayed them. So I grabbed a my mom’s credit card and headed to Africa.

Experiment 1: Monkeys and Clothes

Donkey Kong and his friends all wear some kind of signature attire: DK has his tie, Diddy has his cap, and Funky has his shades. As it turns out, real apes generally do not mind lite apparel: the Gorillas seemed uninterested in the neck ties and the chimps played with the hats, but the sunglasses were quickly removed and/or broken. To solve this problem, I duct taped sunglasses onto several apes and I quickly came to the realization that monkeys don’t like duct tape sticking to their fur. Not wanting to get near the agitated apes, I left them alone and ran away as fast as possible… I can only imagine how those poor apes got around after dark.

Experiment 2: Dixie’s Twirling Helicopter Flying Hair Move Thingie

In order to test Dixie Kong’s signature move I needed to super glue a long wig onto a female chimpanzee’s head and make it into a long pony tail; I accomplished this with the liberal application of chloroform. After watching the ape for several hours, it never attempted to jump and twirl so I needed to find a way to make the ape airborne, so I built a catapult. That… didn’t work. Soaring into the air with an excited shriek, yes. Hair twirling and flying after that… no. Perhaps I will try again when I can find a place to position my catapult that’s not near a bunch of rocks.

Experiment 3: Monkeys vs. Crocodiles

Fans of the original Donkey Kong Country know that DK’s sworn enemies are the Kremlings, a race of sentient, anthropomorphic, crocodile-like creatures with a passion for piracy. Thus, I was curious to see how chimps and gorillas would fare in battles with real crocodiles. The chimps were up first, and they didn’t fare very well. They were kind of eaten. Had the chimps attempted to cartwheel into the crocodiles, I imagine they would have been more successful. The gorillas proved much more effective, and while there were some casualties when the gorillas entered the water, most successfully engaged the crocs on land and proceeded to crush their bones and toss them about. Tragically, neither species of ape utilized the barrels I had on hand as throwing weapons.

Experiment 4: Gorillas Riding other Animals

One of the best parts of DKC was jumping on Rambi the Rhino, Enguarde the Swordfish, or Expresso the Ostrich, and blazing through the game’s beautiful environments while clobbering every enemy who dared to get in DK’s way. So now I had to see how gorillas interacted with these animals in the real world. Getting a hold of all these animals once again required the use of chloroform as well as tasers and tranquilizer guns, but I was determined to finish these experiments in the name of science! First up was the swordfish, and actually getting the gorilla on the fish proved challenging but duct tape once again saved the day. However, real gorillas can’t hold their breath as well as DK and real swordfish have trouble pulling the weight of full grown gorillas – no test subjects survived. Next up was the ostrich, which was thoroughly crushed under the gorilla’s considerable mass. Then came the rhino, and believe it or not, it almost worked, but rhinos don’t like it when there is a gorilla on their back; they tend to buck said gorilla off and then charge at it, creating a simian shish kabob. Thankfully the experiment didn’t turn out all that fruitless when I discovered that said shish kabob was surprisingly tasty, especially when served with barbecued ostrich and beer-battered swordfish.

Experiment 5: DK Rap

This was less of an experiment or more of a constant, vigilant observation of my surroundings throughout the expedition. Never once did I see or here any primates or animals of any kind performing any musical numbers. Perhaps hoping to hear the masterful rhymes of the DK Rap was me having my head in the clouds, but I figure at the very least I would hear something from The Lion King. Tragically, the most common sound I heard was the whimpering of various apes as they participated in my brilliant experiments.

Final Thoughts

Some hozers might not think I accomplished much during my work, but they obviously don’t truly appreciate science like I do. Nintendo wouldn’t have included so many traits and abilities in the Donkey Kong games if the actual animals didn’t at least possess them in some small way, so obviously my experiments didn’t go deep enough. Next time I will need more time, more barrels, more gorillas, more neckties, more barbecue sauce and more chloroform.

My parents will also need a new credit card because I’m pretty sure this one was maxed out.

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