With Ultra 64 unlikely to appear before the end of 1995, Nintendo had been subject to criticisms that it was falling behind its competitors in the; race to dominate the home console market. With previews of software for the SNES and Project Reality on show, however, Nintendo's line-up for the rest of '94 stole the entire show. There was little to match it from rivals Sega and Sony, whose token presence and lack of next generation gamesware on display merely served to turn the tables on them. Discussing the future of Project Reality, a Silicon Graphics spokesman claimed that it was 'on budget and on time', although it still wouldn't appear before the autumn of 1995 A new name has been announced, too: from now on, the console will be known as the Nintendo Ultra 64. Undoubted star of the show was Donkey Kong Country, a startling new development which features the sort of 3D graphics promised by the 32-bit 'next generation' consoles.

Indeed, many journalists believed they were watching an Ultra 64 demo when the game was revealed, but there was audible surprise when Howard Lincoln announced that 'the game you have been watching is Donkey Kong Country, for the SNES.' Just as surprising was the revelation that DKC doesn't rely on any fancy 24-bit super FX chips or hardware: instead, it is a result of some immensely clever programming techniques that exploit the true capacities of the SNES. The game was written by Rare Design, who used the Alias software tools described in SP22 for a process known as ACM (Advanced Computer Modelling). Running on Silicon Graphics hardware, a design tool called Alias PowerAnimator™ was used to create the 3D sprites that would appear on the SNES. Subtle lighting effects were then added with the Alias Digital OptiF/X™ package. According to Tim Stamper, managing director of Rare, 'we've expanded the horizons of conventional game design with custom effects created using Alias' °Pen architecture.' Nintendo has acquired a number of these development tools and will be making them available to third-party game developers.

NBA Jam publisher Acclaim has already been supplied with one, as they plan to start work on new titles for the Ultra 64. Two Ultra 64 games were also revealed to an elite press audience: Killer Instinct, produced by WMS (the originators of Mortal Kombat) was a slick-looking beat-'em-up with 3D characters. Instead of taking the Virtua Fighter route of generating them from polygons, this uses 3D shaded sprites in a style similar to DKC. It also showed some originality in terms of environment and the moving viewpoint, through which a fight could move around the highly-detailed locations. Killer Instinct will debut in the arcades this autumn. The other offering, Cruis'n USA, was a driving game that, whilst not quite matching the update rate of Ridge Racer, certainly outperformed other arcade driving games in terms of playability and variety. The message given by the Summer CES was clear. Not only is Nintendo set to remain a major contender in the video games field, but the 16-bit machines will continue to dominate the games scene for a long time to come.

Donkey Kong Country Continued...

It's no exaggeration: you really won't have seen graphics like this on a SNES before. Come to think of it, you won't have seen graphics this good on any CD-based machines either. The problem with these screen shots is that, as static scenes, they really don't begin to capture the look of the game in full swing. The sprites are fluidly animated, making them appear so round and solid that you'll imagine you're controlling a scene from an Aardman Animation rather than a game character. Quite how they've achieved the effect is a bit of a mystery, too: take one look at the foliage in the jungle, or the pale mist that drifts eerily through the mine sections, and you'll swear blind that the SNES simply doesn't have the pixel resolution to manage it.

Not content with one miracle, Nintendo have somehow squeezed some incredibly atmospheric music in there as well. The dream ambience of the underwater level was our favourite, with full use made of the stereo sound capacity.

This time around the big ape has been joined by a monkey sidekick, Diddy Kong, and between the two of them they take on bees, vultures, sharks and crocodiles in a platform romp. Barrels play a big part once more -if you're not jumping them or throwing them, you're rolling on them or being blasted from them like a simian cannonball.

Mario fans may be disappointed by the fact that, underneath the frills, DKC looks very much like a standard platformer without the complexity and longevity that made Super Mario World such a superb playing experience. It also seems to lack the weird mushroomy edges that distinguishes Japanese games from the Western counterparts (remember that DKC was created by Rare Design, a firmly British company based in a Warwickshire farmhouse).

We share those concerns, although we have to say that, even at a cursory glance, Donkey Kong's barrel-rolling, liana-swinging rhino-spurring antics promise a lot more than the average fare. No less than 28 people have worked on DKC -the biggest team ever assembled for a single Nintendo project. Graphical data eats a lot of memory, of course, and Donkey Kong Country weighs in at a hefty 32 Mbit. However, Nintendo of America have indicated that DKC will be released in the US in November at a price of $69.95. That suggests a competitive UK price of £49.99, despite its cart size.