I also very much enjoy their take on getting the player to explore the world by not just leaving them things to find, but by leaving them hints that these things exist. On a personal note, I also tend to enjoy the 'darker' side of things (Metroid Prime 2 was my favourite of THAT trilogy because it was, like DKC2, the darkest and most difficult of the group) and think the effectiveness in which DKC2 sets its own tone is something that should be considered in every game.  Be consistent, find your mood, and help the player get there. I was (and still am) a little torn on what game to post here, so what I'm gonna do is talk a little bit of the game I originally wanted to post and go into the actual game. The game I decided against was the original Command & Conquer. This is the game that made really turned me into a gamer around the age of 8. Besides it being a military strategy game, and I've always been a gun/military stuff buff, I believe I was mostly drawn to it because I couldn't play it. I only had the chance to play it a friend's house on his brothers computer and he wasn't very given to let us play at all so we managed to sneak in one time when he wasn't around, and I believe all that waiting to play after just watching really pushed the experience along and turned me