Plastic Instruments: Before Guitar Hero - Donkey Konga

Have you ever wondered where this rage with all the plastic instruments really started? I mean seriously it’s insane, I walk around my house and it looks like a recording studio with racks of friggin plastic guitars, a drum set and a mic that is gathering dust.

Just the immense number of people who come to love these games has really astounded me, and we aren’t just talking kids to the college crowd. I am talking about full grown adults working on a shop floor talking about rocking out the night before at a bar’s “Guitar Hero” night. It’s like they were transported back a decade or two and were their own garage band for a night.

Well I got to thinking where did this really all come from? This pile of plastic that will be obsolete by the next version, where did it all start? I think I finally may have found it in an obscure game that many of you may have not played… Donkey Konga!

While this was not the first game genius to use the magic of plastic instruments to produce musical euphoria, it was to me the first to really break the ice. The original has to go to “Taiko: Drum Master”, which was a PS2 game based on a Japanese arcade games.

On a side note if you ever do find yourself in Japan take the time to go to a Japanese arcade, you will not be disappointed. Just make sure that you start off with the kiddies on something real easy, 'cause walking in there is like walking into a professional sports arena. There are champions who hang out there and defend their turf and their titles, and they have no qualms about destroying you before you can figure out which button is punch and which is kick. But because you’re a tourist, when they do make you feel like it was your first time touching a joy stick, at least they do it with a smile. Back to the main point…

“Donkey Konga” definitely made for some fun times when I first found it, a game packaged with some plastic bongos can always find some way to become entertaining. Using a variety of hits on the two congas and claps, as there is a microphone to register those hits, would allow the user to progress through the game.

The game itself was a little mediocre but still fun all the same. Anything with the word Donkey Kong is usually alright in my book just in that the character and everything about him leads to some ridiculous metaphors and overall good times. It’s a Game Cube title and I only knew of few people who had it but if you want to see an early generation of the plastic instrument genre then I think it would be entertaining at the very least to hook it up to a Wii.