Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a fresh and lively video game that will bring a grin to your lips and a cramp to your wrist. It offers a pure and sweet kind of fun that echoes the best titles of a generation ago. Judge it purely on its ability to provide an afternoon's entertainment, and you will agree it is one of the greatest things ever to flicker out of your TV, even counting Holmes on Homes.

But. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat does not provide very good value for money. It is monster stupid expensive and it is over very quickly. While it lasts it will have you pie-eyed with delight, marveling at how lucky you are. Then it will end and you will wonder if there is something else and there will not be anything else and you will feel sad and blue and a little bit used.

Good news first. You play the game by pounding on electric bongo drums, and occasionally by clapping your hands. The game is a "platform" adventure, which means it is all about running Donkey Kong the ape through forests and across savannahs and up snow-covered mountains, jumping from cliff to cliff and across countless chasms, pausing only to collect magical bananas or stomp on the soft heads of bad guys.

The action is cut into brief sections. You complete two platformy levels, you fight a big nasty mean monster, you tally up your collection of bananas. Level level boss, level level boss.

To run to the right, you tap the drum on the right. A few touches will make DK walk. A frenzied hammering will throw him into a four-legged gallop. As the hills get steeper and the bad guys more numerous you will figure out when to drum like Animal and when to play smooth jazz. Hint: most of the time you will not play smooth jazz.

You have already figured out how to run to the left. To jump, you smack both drums at the same time. To stomp on the heads of bad guys, you smack both drums when you are airborne. To open up a vaguely-defined but effective can of whoop ass, you clap your hands. This fills the air around DK with a sort of wobbly shimmer effect that stuns bad guys and bursts open bubbles and turns scary monsters into bunches of bananas.

Clapping is the heart and soul of the game, really. You will spend nearly all your time with Jungle Beat smacking your palms together like an eight-month-old getting her first taste of watermelon. You will feel like that eight-month-old, too. You will smile from somewhere deep in your diaphragm. You will be slap happy.

Now the bad news. If you bought last fall's Donkey Konga, you already own a set of electric bongos and can opt for the cheaper version of Jungle Beat, which retails for $50. If you need the drums, you must cough up an extra ten bucks to have them bundled in. So the bare minimum price of entry here is $60. You will watch the closing credits within four-or-so hours of your first tap of the drums. You can play over and over again, ratcheting up your score and trying for something called "platinum medals," but the flush of novelty will be long gone by the end of the first afternoon. What does this mean? It means that, dollar for dollar and hour for hour, going to Disneyland is a better entertainment value than Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. And Disneyland is a total ripoff.

A few kinds of fun are not to be missed, no matter the cost. Bungee jumping, for example. You will never ever find a used bungee jump for sale in a remainder bin.