My name is Stephen, and I can’t stop playing “Pokémon.” When did my obsession start? When did I go too far? And does anyone have a solution?

A couple of weeks ago, after years of gingerly dipping my toe into the pool of “Pokémon” games, I made my dive. I plunged into “Pokémon Pearl” for the Nintendo DS in an effort, as I’ve said before, to try to understand the “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” phenomenon (see “First Look At ‘Pokemon Pearl’ “). I went in aware of the risks of infectious obsession, wearing the figurative hazmat suit and Geiger counter, certain that any bites of the “Pokémon”-playing bug could be treated.

Could I resist? I thought so. That was before I logged 14 hours and 49 minutes with the game. That’s my current play time, which kind of averages to an hour a day. It kind of doesn’t though, because last Friday I was knocked out for a good chunk of the day with general anesthesia to treat a quibbling medical issue that led to a weekend of couch-bound recovery. I had been looking forward to the recovery for days because I knew it would afford me more time feeling excused from going outside in the nice weather and staying home playing “Pokémon.” It all goes back to those little monsters.

The measure of my obsession isn’t best described with 14:49. It’s just as well counted at 19,192. That’s the number of steps my little “Pokémon Pearl” lead character has taken since he got a pedometer a couple of hours into the game. The number ticks up one at a time as I step him across grassy fields and through dank caves. It looks like the pedometer will roll over to zero after I reach 99,999. I intend to take it there. So far I’ve seen 49 Pokémon in the game. I’ve captured 27.

My most telling “Pokémon” statistic might actually be three, which is the number of “Pokémon” games I played this weekend. One: I played “Pearl.” Two: I popped the Game Boy Advance’s “Pokémon Sapphire” into the compatible slot on my DS to see how far I’d gotten in that one. I remembered trying it for about four hours a few years back, catching a handful of Pokémon. Actually, the GBA cartridge revealed that I had caught 27 and had played the game for 12 hours and 32 minutes. What does it say about the “Pokémon” experience that I’ve blocked eight and a half hours of it from my memory? And that I keep playing these games anyway?

Game number three: That’s “Pokémon Ranger,” a DS game from the fall that went all out with the DS stylus control by challenging players to catch Pokémon — not with the standard strategy of turn-by-turn attacking and the cross-finger toss of a never fully reliable toss of a Poké Ball, but with the furious scribbling of circles on the system’s touch screen. A Pokémon appears on that lower screen. You draw loops around it in one continuous line. That simple technique is complicated by uncooperative Pokémon that try to break the line even as you power that line up with flames and blades of grass. I had lost this game but found it last week and got lost in it over the weekend. I spent quite some time Saturday trying to capture a fire-breather who needed to be encircled 21 times. It was frustrating and rewarding but only sounds silly when written out like this.

I played “Ranger” for six hours this weekend (remember, I was couch-ridden). I didn’t mind that it was taking me away from “Pearl,” because I was playing it for “Pearl.” Most “Pokémon” games allow players to transport Pokémon from one game to the next. I read online that beating “Ranger” would allow me to bring one mighty Pokémon from “Ranger” to “Pearl.” The directions I’ve found suggest I have several hours of work — I mean, playing — ahead of me before I can make the transfer. I have to play “Pearl” even longer to bring the 27 Pokémon I caught in “Sapphire” during those forgotten 12 hours of play to join the 27 I have in my “Pearl” menagerie.

And why am I doing this? I’m doing it because “Pearl” is going to let me use all these Pokémon in online battles and trades. The battles will be restricted to people I know who will exchange 16-digit friend codes with me (see “Cracking Nintendo Friend Codes”). I have two friends ready to battle already. One of them has been unsure about this whole “Pokémon” thing. The other seems to be a pro. He keeps trash-talking me on Instant Messenger, telling me that we’ll have a competitive match even though his Pokémon are lower-powered than mine. He says he knows some tricks. The Pokémon I’m trying to bring over from “Ranger” could be my ace.

I’ve sent out for some support from Japan. A week ago, I put one of my weakest Pokémon up for trade, requesting a powerful Cranidos dinosaur Pokémon in exchange and certain there would be no takers. But according to the online-enabled Global Trading Station in “Pearl,” a player in Chiba, Japan, wanted to make the deal. A friend told me that Japanese “Pokémon” players are making these supposedly bad trades because they want Pokémon that are logged as having been raised in the U.S. That’s their level of obsession. I like it. It makes me feel normal in comparison.

This is the kind of person “Pokémon” games turn you into. You go from collecting Pokémon in one game to collecting “Pokémon” games for some grander competition. There’s a Wii game coming in June that will let me bring all my Pokémon into that system. I think I need to straighten myself out before then. Can I kick it? Yes, I can.

What’s the measure of your obsession?

Pac-man is, without a doubt, one of the greatest games ever made. So great, I proudly wear my Pac-Head around the office (even when people are looking). However, even going to that level of devotion, I can?t even come close to this Malaysian fan?s love for the game. His full back tattoo rivals only a few others in its size and dedication? as well as possible insanity.

Read more…

Once a week I’ve provided a Stock Report to give you a sense of which games are streaming into the office and how companies are trying to grab our attention. The games arrive at my desk throughout the day, throughout the week, hand-delivered by our men in the mailroom. What I receive and am tallying below are the final store-ready copies of games. If I got it, your local gaming store probably got it this week too. I just don’t think the game stores get the swag. That’s fair. I don’t get the giant cardboard stand-ups of Q*bert and the guy from “Strider.”

The Stock Report:

Number of games at MTV HQ: 290 (a drop from last week; we gave some games away)

Last three games to arrive: “Pokémon Pearl” (Nintendo DS); “Halo 2″ (PC); “Cube” (PSP)

Last system to arrive: Xbox 360 Elite

Last swag to arrive: Same as last time — a 10.5-ounce bag of Kraft Jet-Puffed marshmallows (”a fat free food”) and a plastic marshmallow-shooting toy gun, a somewhat ill-timed pair of promotional items sent to hype the upcoming Xbox 360 game “Monster Madness.” This box of swag did not include the game.

Notes on the system we received this week:

Xbox 360 Elite

» The big addition to the library here is an Xbox 360 Elite, the $479 upgraded version of Microsoft’s one-and-a-half-year-old console. The Elite launches in stores this Sunday. (For details on what’s different about it see “Xbox 360 Is Back In Black With Roomier Elite Console”).

» The shipping box we got containing the Elite also included a letter of greeting to the press and a loose copy of the Xbox 360 Migration kit. The kit includes a program disc, a couple of sheets of instructions and a wire for the migration. What’s it for? It enables a one-time-only transfer of data — game saves, Xbox Live Arcade games, videos, music, but not movie rentals — from one of the old 20GB Xbox 360 hard drives to the Elite’s new 120GB one. The document makes clear that the data will be erased from the outgoing drive and that a second transfer won’t be allowed. Who would care about this? People who already own an Xbox 360 with a hard drive who want to know if they’ll be able to jockey saved data back and forth between hard drives. They won’t be able to, and Microsoft claims not to want them to, because …

» The Xbox 360 consumer documentation that comes with the Migration Kit says, “Please be aware that the Xbox 360 Elite is intended for new console owners. Users who desire expanded storage for their existing Xbox 360 are advised to purchase the 120 GB hard-drive accessory [sold as a standalone product] rather than Xbox 360 Elite.” In other words, Microsoft is actually telling owners of the original white Xbox 360 to not buy a second, black machine.

» The Elite is not supposed to play games any differently than the cheaper, original models of the 360. We’ll keep an eye — and an ear — on that.

Notes on the game we received this week:

“Cube” (PSP - *SISW)

» “Cube” is a puzzle game from publisher D3 of America. Like “Halo 2″ before it, it saved the MTV News office from being bereft of new games this week.

» The game box promises “Pure Puzzle-Fueled Pandemonium.” D3 demoed the game to MTV News several weeks ago during a press event in midtown New York. The publisher’s bombastic “Earth Defense Force” and the surprisingly intriguing “Bejeweled”-meets-”Final-Fantasy” game “Puzzle Quest” stole that show.

» “Cube” asks the player to strategically roll a cube across three-dimensional grids, using power-ups to clear obstacles and avoid or conquer enemies.

» While the setup of “Cube” is simple, the question — once it’s out of shrink-wrap — will be whether it works well in three dimensions. Even though 3-D is the norm for many other styles of games — from platformers like the console “Mario” games to fighting and adventure titles — 2-D is still the dominant mode of puzzle games. “Tetris” and modern successors such as “Lumines” and “Meteos” get the buzz, and flat puzzle games such as “Bejeweled” and “Sudoku” are the genre’s top sellers. Puzzle games in 3-D have yet to have their breakout hit, despite some well-received work such as the mid-’90s “Tetrisphere” and the run of “Super Monkey Ball” games. “Cube” and the forthcoming Sega PSP game “Crush,” which challenges players to morph a puzzle field back and forth from 2-D to 3-D, are the latest attempts at a 3-D puzzle breakthrough.

*SISW = still in shrink-wrap (we’ll get to them later!)

Or cakes of war? Whatever. If you’re a sucker for game cakes like I am, then check out gamecakes.com. What’s a better way to combine your love of sugary baked goods and awesome video games? Nothin’ — that’s what.

Is there anyone who doesn’t think the holographic chess scene in “Star Wars” is cool? If so, I’ve never met them. Death Stars, Wookies and earmuff haircuts may go in and out of fashion, but everyone still wants to be able to play chess with little holographic monsters that strut atop a real table.

In May, I experienced something similar to playing that kind of game. In a small room in the middle of the packed Sony booth at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, I was introduced to a game called “The Eye of Judgment.” It ran on the PlayStation 3, and of all the games I saw on the floor — the high-definition first-person shooters, the fluid fighting games, the sweaty sports ones — it was the one that felt most futuristic.

What I saw then is relevant now because Sony announced Thursday (April 26) that a PlayStation 3 camera called PlayStation Eye will be released this summer. The camera is an evolutionary step up from the PS2’s EyeToy and captures higher-quality pictures, video and — thanks to a built-in microphone — sound. The Sony press release promises free packed-in “EyeCreate” software that will let users edit what they capture. And Sony execs have already said the camera will let users share video of their performance in PS3 karaoke games and, like the EyeToy before it, can track full-body movements for games that require players to get active. The company has been pushing camera innovation in gaming for some time (see “Small Men Battling On Your Coffee Table? EyeToy Could Make It A Reality”).

I read Sony’s announcement looking for a mention of “The Eye of Judgment.” There wasn’t one. I contacted a Sony rep trying to get word of “The Eye of Judgment,” and she confirmed that it is coming to the U.S. this fall.

So what’s so interesting about this game? The room I entered at E3 last year had two tables set in front of a big TV, each decked with an odd gadget that looked like a desk lamp. A developer from one of Sony’s Japanese development studios produced a small stack of cards and placed it on one of the tables. The lamp, which had an EyeToy/Eye-style camera in it, pointed down at the table, which had a grid laid across it. In reality, all that was on the table was a card. In the version of reality that was projected by the camera onto a TV screen, a green dragon hovering over the card, flapping its wings. The developer put another card down and, on the TV screen, a pink dragon was standing on it. He moved the cards and the characters moved. He waved his hand through them and poked at them. They reacted.

The developer explained that the camera can read bar codes printed on the cards and interpret my interaction with the place where the monsters were virtually standing in order to trigger different moves. What would have looked to some people as me poking the air right above the first table would have looked to anyone watching the TV screen as me prodding a blue dragon just enough to make it breathe fire.

The first table was designed to demonstrate the “card-profile mode.” I was told there would be 100 cards to collect. Moving any card under a circle projected on the screen brought up the statistical profile of the character on the screen. Watching footage of that Thursday, during the same week I’m diving deeply into the new “Pokémon” game, makes my mind race with possibilities.

The second table was for “vs. mode,” a match that has two players place cards on a grid that resembles a tick-tack-toe board. Placing cards allows the player to claim a square. Placing a rival card nearby triggers a battle. Placing magic-spell cards on top of the monster cards creates an onscreen flourish of magic spells. The virtual ground shook when the developer laid a card for a casting called “Fissure of Gowly.” It was an impressive move, and I don’t even know who, what or where Gowly is.

A month before last year’s E3, I spent a week reporting in Japan. I’d been told that card-based video games were popular in arcades. On my first evening in Tokyo, I went to an arcade, and — sure enough — gamers were placing trading cards featuring muscular male warriors and curvaceous female fighters onto special tables. Once placed, the cards were rendered on a monitor as a military unit or group of units on a battlefield. The aim of the game level I observed was to storm a heavily fortified gate. Watching an expert player was like witnessing someone good at magic tricks or three-card monte. Their hands raced across the table, sliding and switching cards as they spun their strategy.

Later in my trip, I watched a Japanese player place athlete-specific cards on a table shaped like a soccer field and then press some buttons to play a soccer game using those athletes.

While impressive, the games I saw in Japan lacked the technological pop of “The Eye of Judgment,” which lets players watch their own hands interact with the virtual characters, at least in the card-profile mode. They couldn’t do it, because they didn’t use a camera.

So we’ve had card-battle games like “Magic: The Gathering” in the U.S. for years. We’ve had “Pokémon” too. And everyone knows that chess scene from “Star Wars.” “The Eye of Judgment” appears to be designed to put that all together. I’m ready for a game of future chess.

Last week my lovely friend K.B. called wanting to set me up on a blind date.  Now, normally I’m not into that sort of thing, but after checking my social calendar and stumbling upon the harsh reality that "Eat Cheetos" and "Cry myself softly to sleep" was the only entry I had for the next 3 months, I accepted. Not wanting to set myself up for disappointment, I set my expectations at an all-time low. So imagine my surprise when I arrived at my romantic table on the beach and caught my first glimpse of the angel that was to be my dinner companion. She was about 15 inches tall. Black as the sweetest dark chocolate.  Trim and fit, but with enough space to hold 120GB of gaming goodness. The most beautiful HDMI port I’d ever seen, and the cable to plug it into my soul. And her controller. Dear Lord, her controller. When I held her sleek black wireless controller in my hand, I knew it was love. The conversation flowed as freely as the champagne — a $479.99 bottle of bubbly that  was well worth every penny — and was filled with stories of superior graphical quality and engaging online connectivity. Without exception, the most emotionally fulfilling conversation I’d ever had.  But alas, all good things must come to an end, and as I watched her stroll off into the sunset, my head was filled with one thought, and one thought only, "I love you XBOX Elite. You had me at Halo."

Move brings our gamer to a crossroads with Sony’s handheld.

The “God of War” series is coming to Sony’s PlayStation Portable.

Word trickled out several weeks ago when the “God of War” font came to PSP developer Ready at Dawn’s Web site. Word became official with statements from Sony developers and then, on Wednesday (April 25), the debut of a trailer for the PSP’s “God of War: Chains of Olympus.”

“God of War” is ready for PSP. I’m just not sure I’m ready for it. The game puts me and Sony’s handheld at an interesting crossroads.

Depending on whom you ask, you’ll hear that the PSP is either a Sony success — a triumph of engineering that can run games that resemble midrange PS2 titles; it’s also a stable seller in the U.S. — or as a Sony stumble (it sold only 180,000 units in the U.S. last month compared to the less-powerful Nintendo DS’ 508,000, according to research firm NPD).

None of that affects my playing habits. My job and my insatiable appetite for games keep me playing the PSP no matter what. Over the past couple of years, I’ve developed a few essential questions that affect my appreciation of any game I might play on the system:

How does the PSP game compare to its PS2 version?

Be it “Grand Theft Auto,” “Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops,” “Killzone: Liberation” or “Daxter,” major PSP games tend to be derived from hit series on the PlayStation 2. This is a blessing and a curse. The benefit is that games arrive in players’ hands exhibiting familiar gameplay, structures and themes, the same comforting way each new “Mario Kart” or “Mario Tennis” immediately makes sense to experienced gamers when the sequels pop up on a new Nintendo machine. The downside is that dissimilarities stand out, particularly any that make the PSP versions of the franchises feel compromised. The “GTA” games on the consoles, for example, benefit from the PS2 or Xbox controllers’ second analog stick. The second stick controls the game’s camera. The PSP doesn’t have a second stick, so the “GTA” games on that system can’t offer camera control that is nearly as smooth. As a result, merely seeing the PSP “GTA” cities at the proper angles is a challenge that it isn’t in the console editions.

The good news here about “God of War” coming to PSP is that the PS2 versions of the game didn’t use that right analog stick for camera control, just for dodging. The game’s signature actions were mapped to the same type of PS2 controller buttons that are on the PSP. Because of this, I’m not expecting any radical control dissimilarities. That might be a first for PS2 to PSP franchise transitions.

Will this one be the game that defines the PSP?

“Tetris” and, later, “Pokémon” defined the Game Boy. “Nintendogs” and “Brain Age” made the Nintendo DS make sense to the masses. There have been very good games on the PSP in the last two years, but there has yet to be a system-defining game, one that people discuss and that sells significantly month after month. Attempts have been made to change this. The ambitious “GTA” games and the unconventional, experimental “Portable Ops” were both strongly promoted efforts that just didn’t get the rep as the PSP game. That crown is still available, and I’m eager to play the game that takes it. Is “God of War” the one?

“Chains of Olympus” is developed by “Daxter” studio Ready at Dawn. Last year, that studio won platformer-of-the-year honors from Gamespot over Nintendo’s “New Super Mario Brothers.” The developers there are quite good. So I’m ready for “God of War” to be The One. I just can’t tell if it can be. “Tetris” aside, the other platform-definers mentioned above did things that people weren’t expecting and hadn’t experienced before (playing a virtual-pet game via a microphone and a touch screen, for example, was a winning novelty). I don’t know what a “God of War” PSP game would have to have for it to define the PSP, especially if, as the trailer indicates, it presents an experience similar to that of the PS2 games.

Do I want to play this game in public?

I’ve noted before that I have issues with playing certain handheld games in public. There are things I don’t like being asked of the portable games I’m playing while sandwiched in the New York City subway (see “Multiplayer: Not A Breath Of Fresh Air”). And there are public displays of portable gaming I quite relish (see “Multiplayer: Gaming While Jogging”).

So here’s the thing: If the PSP’s “God of War” is anything like its M-rated counterparts, it will surely be the most bloody, brutal game I’ll have ever played wedged between the elbows of businesswomen, little kids, panhandlers and the rest of the colorful commuters on the Number 2 train. In the privacy of my own home, I’ve had “God of War” antihero Kratos rip the limbs and heads off characters from Greek mythology. I’ve had him tear soldiers’ sword-bearing arms off and then stab themselves with them. And I’ve felt uneasy enough about those actions when I triggered them on the living-room TV in front of loved ones — what will the strangers on the subway think? How will I help redefine the public image of the gamer? Should I play in public with a smile? Or flash a look of disgust? Can I handle the responsibility? Or maybe they’ll make the game tame and I won’t have to worry. We’ll see.

No release date has been given for “God of War: Chains of Olympus.” A Sony Web site includes details for receiving a demo of the game once such a demo is ready here.

I just got my ticket the other day. I’m going to the circus.

By circus, of course, I mean E3. This year, E3 is invite-only, as compared to last year’s event where you needed, say, a pulse to get in. Game companies finally tired of the huge crowds, the excessive expenditures on booths to show off their games, and the general uselessness of E3’s show floor. So instead of a mass gathering of game store clerks with T-shirts designed to show off this year’s newest bulge, E3 has morphed into something a little more cozy, a little more intimate.

“Welcome to the E3 Media & Business Summit,” the E3 Web site reads,  “an exclusive, invitation-only, three-day event which offers the opportunity for both ESA members and non-members to stage major press events, and to have personal meetings in hotel suites and meeting rooms with media, retailers, developer partners, and other key industry contacts. In addition, [Santa Monica’s] Barker Hangar will be converted into a software showcase where attendees will be able to casually test drive featured video games outside of the companies? suites.”

So, basically, everyone is going to have to shuttle back and forth between this hangar and various hotel rooms in Santa Monica. One of my friends, who happens to write for the very fine game-related publication EGM describes this as “a train wreck ready to happen.”

And, may the the good lord Luigi have mercy on my soul, but I think he’s right.

New game uses abstract objects to represent spouses — now that’s romance!

Super Mario and Zelda are always trying to rescue girls I’m certain they’re trying to date. But as romantic as the game heroes of my early childhood are, I don’t think I learned anything about marriage from them. It might be helpful if I did, because I’m getting married soon.

On Tuesday (April 24), I discovered a game that can teach me something about marriage, and what it seems to be teaching me is fear.

In August, Rod Humble — the head of the “Sims” development studio at EA — went on a weekend getaway with his wife to Carmel, California, and came out of it with a video game he programmed by himself. It’s called “The Marriage,” and it’s got graphics that are less complicated than computer solitaire. It lacks sound. It’s not meant to produce fun the way games usually do. So says Humble in a post on his Web site: ” ‘The Marriage’ is intended to be art. No excuses or ducking. As such it’s certainly meant to be enjoyable but not entertaining in the traditional sense most games are.” (For more on how entertaining games should be, see “Multiplayer: Is ‘God Of War II’ Too Much Fun?”)

So what is “The Marriage”? It’s married life — or any other long-term romantic relationship — simulated in the abstract. A blue field appears on my computer desktop, with a pink square and navy blue square slowly approaching each other from opposite ends. That’s romance! The encroaching glide of a green circle into the blue field is not. When I saw the circle, it troubled me the same way the sight of a Goomba in “Super Paper Mario” or a heavily armed gang leader does in “Crackdown.” I wanted to stamp it out. Clicking on it with my mouse didn’t work — that ended the game. Moving my mouse pointer over the green circle made it disappear but also made the pink square shrink. I assumed that was bad. I let the blue and pink squares touch — it was inevitable — and they gently bounced off each other, the pink one made bigger by the contact. I put the mouse over the pink square and it drew blue and pink together. Blue kept shrinking as they converged under my command.

“The game is my expression of how a marriage feels,” Humble wrote on his site. “The blue and pink squares represent the masculine and feminine [halves] of a marriage. They have differing rules which must be balanced to keep the marriage going.”

Having played the game, I was left assuming that Humble thought it was husbands who benefited from engaging in stuff (and people?) besides a wife, whereas the wife only benefited from contact with the husband. In an interview with the Web site Arthouse Games, Humble said that was not his desired message: “My intent when creating the central mechanic was to create such multiple interpretations, but the central point was the Marriage, that if both needs were not satisfied, the Marriage dies. In other words, love is satisfying different needs. For myself, I do need ‘alone time’ as well as ‘together time,’ but not one exclusively, and the games rules were a way of exploring that.”

That may be his intent, but the game still distressed me. Why? Because despite having what I feel is quite a healthy relationship with my significant other, I can’t beat Rod Humble’s “Marriage” game. I can’t strike a balance. I can’t keep the squares equal. I’ve played the game a dozen times and each time either the husband or the wife shrinks the other one out of existence.

I’ve been in the midst of wedding planning with my girlfriend for several months. I’ve dealt with flower details and parental concerns. I’ve dwelled on music and invitation lists. I’ve listened to suggestions from all sorts of friends who warn about this or that pitfall. None of it has really stressed me out. But this game and my performance at it has injected a little bit of pessimism into the process.

My failure in “The Marriage” bothers me a little more than the failure of any marriage I ever caused in “The Sims 2” or “Fable.” The difference might be that in those games there was some fun to be had in breaking up marriages. Also, those games didn’t feature abstract squares — they featured complexly modeled video game characters. When I wrecked relationships in “The Sims 2″ and in “Fable,” I was doing it to characters who were quite clearly not me. But when marriage is reduced to a system of abstract squares and circles, it seems that I can’t help putting a little bit of myself in there. I felt involved in the marriage in “The Marriage.” I felt it was saying something about me or about what could happen to me and my relationship.

I’m not going to let a video game and my failure at playing it stand in the way of my big day. I’m still extremely optimistic. Marriage is hard, I’ve been told. It sure is. So is the game.

“Marriage” was released as a free computer game last month. To download the game and learn more about creator Rod Humble’s intent, check out RodVik.com/RodGames.

But team behind ‘Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat’ might bring some banging ideas to ‘Super Mario Galaxy.’

Last week I learned that one of the most surprisingly enjoyable oddball innovations in recent gaming history is being left behind. I can’t stay silent. I need to extol the wonders of controlling Donkey Kong with bongo drums and explain why it could mean great things for gamers this year.

At first, the DK Bongo Drums weren’t the wonderfully absurd objects I now consider them to be. I saw them as just another gimmicky toy for Nintendo’s GameCube console. They were big and orange with soft tan padding on top, a lapful of a game controller shaped like life-size bongo drums. They plugged into the GameCube and were used, naturally, for drumming. Nintendo released them in the U.S. in early 2004 bundled with “Donkey Konga,” a Namco-developed music game. On cue, you played the game by banging on the left drum or the right. Sometimes you had to hit both or clap over the microphone. The world received two more “Donkey Konga” games, but I never got so into it that my girlfriend could hear me drumming in our second-floor apartment as she approached from a few doors down the block. No, that happened with a different bongo game.

At the Electronics Entertainment Expo in 2004 I’d been given a tip by one of Nintendo’s employees. He told me not to pay too much attention to “Donkey Konga” but to get myself over to “Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat,” which used the drums in a more unexpected way. The game was a side-scroller. Hitting the left drum made Donkey Kong run left. Hitting the right made him go right. Banging both made him jump and clapping made him clap his hands, usually to grab nearby floating bananas or release an energy wave of an attack. None of these directions sounded good. Joysticks, directional pads and controller buttons had been perfectly successful at moving characters and making them attack. Occasionally, though, something that sounds silly on paper can conjure magic when you experience it. I drummed through “Jungle Beat” with glee. There’s something about making a game character jump by slamming my hands onto two bongo drums that just feels more energizing. There’s something more deliciously frenzied about speed-drumming toward a finish line or clapping frantically to stun a flock of buzzing foes. “Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat” looked great too, sporting colorful rubbery graphics that glistened like tires after a carwash.

After that game came two more “Donkey Konga” titles. The drums were teased as an added control element for the 2006 GameCube military-theme pinball game “Odama” but were dropped. They were then paired with a racing game called “DK: Bongo Blast,” which until earlier this month was the last Nintendo-published game announced for the GameCube. I never saw the game in person. I don’t think Nintendo ever showed it to anyone in the press. From screen shots, though, it looked like Donkey Kong and friends would have been riding around like witches on dual-engine broomsticks. I guess the bongos would have been used to ignite the engines. On paper that sounded no better than “Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat,” but who knows? A couple of weeks ago, the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu announced that “Bongo Blast” had been transferred to the Wii. Players would control the race by shaking the Wii remote and nunchuk. And with that, I considered the bongos to be retired.

Had the experiment failed? Were the bongos a bad idea? They were released in the pre-”Guitar Hero” era when buying a controller shaped like a musical instrument wasn’t a cool thing to do in America. They didn’t feel stylish to play, and my favorite use of them, in “Jungle Beat,” required a Mario-size leap of faith. It’s one thing to ask people to control a tennis game with a controller shaped like a remote control, but to run away from a giant lizard and beat up an evil ape using bongos? It’s a hard sell and wasn’t a very successful one.

“I’m still pissed that not enough people bought ‘Jungle Beat,’ ” Nintendo of America writer Nate Bihldorff told me last week. We were chatting for an article about the script for the Wii’s “Super Paper Mario” (see “GameFile: ‘Super Paper Mario’ Vs. ‘Renaissance.Nerds’; ‘Halo 3′ And More”). We didn’t talk about the specific things he liked about that game. Maybe it was the level that has Donkey Kong swimming/drumming through stacks of Jell-O. Maybe it was the level that had to be played entirely by clapping (the first and last time I’ve ever cleared a board of any game without touching a controller). Those were two of my favorite moments.

I don’t know the specifics of Bihldorff’s taste, but I know why he thinks the makers of that game, a Nintendo team called EAD Tokyo, will get their own last laugh. They’re the creative team for the next Super Mario game, late 2007’s space-faring “Super Mario Galaxy” for the Wii. “That team is so talented,” he said. “Those guys, they are very creative, and the fact that they get to go into outer space with absolutely no rules on what sort of stuff they can make Mario do is a good thing. They’ve got big old brains over there.”

Bihldorff wasn’t going to tell me if his impressions were based on the demo reporters were able to play back in May 2006 at E3 or something a little more recent. He also wasn’t going to tell me if any drums were going to connect to the game. I’ll take the easy bet that they’re not. But I’ll also take a bet that, when it comes to figuring out how to make Mario move through the vacuum of space with the Wii controllers, the lessons EAD Tokyo learned from making Donkey Kong move around using drums and some clapping will serve them — and any Mario fans out there — right.