One for the pre-teens or one of the best platform games you can buy? We skip past the intro and enjoy some top simian japes.
Martin Kitts

Despite opening with a Sesame Street-style three-minute rap song, which is guaranteed to make anyone over the age of ten cringe with embarrassment, Rare's Christmas biggie, Donkey Kong 64, shouldn't be overlooked by those of us old enough to write our own names.

It's actually a superb platform adventure of the kind of quality that only Nintendo's in-house development teams have ever been able to produce. It's also absolutely vast, with a daunting quest that will take somewhere close to forever to complete properly. You start with DK himself, wandering around a fairly plain island hub with a few rather obvious exits leading off from it. So far so simple. But after a short while, you rescue another member of the Kong clan, and another and another until you have five playable characters (Diddy, Chunky, Lanky and Tiny), each with a unique set of abilities.

Each level contains puzzles that must be completed with the appropriate Kong because, with more than 100 moves spread amongst the monkey family, there are certain areas that require, say, Diddy's jet-pack, Chunky's strength or Lanky's distressing penchant for floating around by filling his belly with gas. Despite having so many moves to remember, the controls are absolutely spot-on, and just running around admiring the wonderful scenery is a pleasure in itself.