With the high number of students living on campus this semester, most of us are stuck with our roommates, for better or worse. But at the end of a long day of classes, why should we come back to a room where we sit at our desks, ignoring each other’s terrible taste in music and praying we don’t have to spend another night with our “girlfriend-in-law” about five feet away?

Why can’t we work together for a better cause? Like helping Donkey and Diddy Kong bring back their bananas?

This year, Nintendo is creating more games that will unite gamer roommates with their more social counterparts. New games such as “Donkey Kong Country Returns,” “Kirby’s Epic Yarn,” and “Wii Party” focus on cooperative game-play that forces you to get along or die trying.

My suitemate and I boarded the Nintendo Experience tour Airstream bus to get a preview of Nintendo’s holiday releases and see if we could finally bond like brothers.

It seemed only natural when Jamie Ball, the member of Team Nintendo who walked us through the new titles, put me in control during our demo of “Donkey Kong Country Returns” for the Wii. I am the nerd of the two of us after all. But my suitemate quickly caught on to the game’s motion-based controls. As we ran through the vibrantly colored jungle where the Kongs’ precious bananas are hidden, he not only kept up, but started to leave me behind in his lust for potassium.

The game itself is a return to the Super Nintendo’s “Donkey Kong Country” side-scrolling game-play with a few new twists. Using the Wii-remote, players can switch between the foreground and background of levels and interact with a destructible environment to find hidden secrets and even more bananas.

This meant the world to me as someone who played the original “Donkey Kong Country,” but to my suitemate it didn’t make a difference.

Even though we came from different backgrounds, we were both way too happy when we saw Donkey Kong help Diddy Kong grab a banana that would have been one monkey too far for the little guy.

Ball joined us for Nintendo’s “Wii Party.” “Wii Party” is a collection of mini-games that can be played both on and off screen using the Wii’s motion controls.

In one game, we passed the Wii-remote in a circle as though it were a ticking-time bomb. The motion sensors in the controller monitored every bump along the way, each threatening to set off the explosive. As time started to move faster and we rushed to pass the Wii-remote around, our hands started to shake and sweat, potentially setting off the dangerous explosive.

My suitemate and my eyes met as he handed me the controller for what he knew would be the last time. As I pulled away, he jerked his hands up, setting off the explosive in my face. My character on screen and I both looked dazed, with hurt expressions on our faces as their characters mimicked the laughter filling the bus. It was that moment that connected us more than anything we’d done in our together in our lives so far. We came as roommates, friends even, but we left as brothers, giggling about what games we were going to buy all the way home.

Roommates may not always see eye to eye, but as long as you’re together for better or for worse, it might as well be better. Our Team Nintendo representative said that it is not for everybody, but in my opinion if you’re willing to go so far as to pay for a room switch, you might as well grab a few virtual bananas first. And if that doesn’t work out, just set off a bomb in your roommate’s face.

Sam Winstrom can be reached at [email protected]