Before Mario became super, he was a brave carpenter (or so says one early promotional flyer) instead of a plumber and had an 800-pound gorilla on his back. You can shake off that monkey all over again in the rerelease of Donkey Kong as part of the NES Classics series.

The game looks great on both the Game Boy Advance and the Game Boy Player for the Nintendo GameCube. As the story goes, this freak-of-nature gorilla kidnaps the beautiful girl. Mario, being the chivalrous type, runs to the rescue. To reach damsel in distress, however, Mario must avoid the gorilla's killa posse of barrels, fireballs and bouncing rivets. Along the way, Mario picks up big points when he hammers barrels and fireballs and snags the umbrella, purse and hat that the girl dropped during her abduction.

Once Mario reaches the girl, DK pulls a fast one and takes her away to another level. Mario doesn't know he's fighting a never-ending battle in the name of love, but don't feel too sorry for him. Even though he never really gets the girl in Donkey Kong, he does collect a lot of coins in the other games in which he appears and should be pretty rich by now.

Two players can take turns competing for the girl, either on the same Game Boy Advance or with the help of a Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable. Plus, you can save your high score to memory (you need almost a million points to beat the world's record, so you better get jumping)

• Classic arcade action
• Two player alternating
• Sound effects that shaped a generation