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Donkey Kong Arcade Intellivision/ A

Posted: October 5th, 2011, 10:44 am
by Stephen
I remember back in the summer of good 'ol 1983. My parents had purchased an Intellivision II, the system changer module (which could play Atari 2600 games), Pac-Man, Pitfall, and the Intellivision port of Donkey Kong. I was HUNGRY for Donkey Kong on the Intellivision, so I removed the shrink wrap, popped it inside my Intellivision II, turned it on, and nothing happened. Little did I know the Intellivision II wouldn't play Donkey Kong. As if to shield us from the abomination that is Donkey Kong for the Intellivision.
 
Instinctively, I tried the other console. And it worked fine! I returned the console later that day. Anyway, I started playing, and my heart was SHATTERED into a million peices. I always relied on the Intellivision for a nice time with the few arcade ports it had. The game play was VERY slow. Jump man had blue clothes and no mustache (not to mention no eyes). Pauline was a single colored mess that looked more like a GHOST than a girl. And Donkey Kong, he looked like the freaking BOOGEY MAN for Pete's sake!
 
After playing for a few more minutes I thought to myself. "Is this really the BEST they could DO?" And from that day on I had visions of a far better Donkey Kong game for the Intellivision.
 
After several hoaxes (like videos on You Tube, Google search results ect.) my hopes were high, but I always found errors in those kinds of tricks. I thought all hope was lost, until the summer of 2011.
 
The announcement of Donkey Kong Arcade on the Intellivision had caught my attention. I pre-ordered a copy in early August. And on September 4th, I had received my copy.
 
When I feasted my eyes on Donkey Kong Arcade's title screen I knew I was in for a treat.

The first improvement is the over-all graphics. The bright, colorful scenery even gives the arcade game a run for it's money! Jump man looks arcade perfect. Even Donkey Kong himself is a work of graphical art. The only thing that looks different from the arcade game is Pauline and the bonus items, which are single colored. But once you get into a game, you won't even notice this change.

And what really caught me off guard is the fact that it contains all four screens of the arcade game. Yeah, you heard me, four freaking screens. All looking as good as the next.

The sound effects are also faithful to the arcade, on par with the colecovision sounds. All of the original tracks are here, including a catchy new title screen theme.

Even the intermissions are included. The classic scene of Donkey Kong carrying Pauline up with him. The scene where he carries her up to the next level. The "how high can you get" screen. And even the satisfying scene where Donkey Kong plummets to the ground when you remove all of the rivets.

As an added bonus, there are two extra playable characters. Toni and Bruno. I was hoping for Luigi to be in the game, but it's not a big deal. Each character has they're own special abilities. Mario plays like the original, Bruno can continue to hold the hammer while he climbs and jumps, and Toni is a fast little guy.

This is an excellent Intellivision title, it even puts the Colecovision and Atari XEGS versions to shame. And once you play this top notch title I guarantee you will never look at the Intellivision console the same way again.

If you were disappointed with the original Donkey Kong for the Intellivision, crave a nice fix of Donkey Kong in the day, and collect Intellivision games, you can't go wrong with this one.

Donkey Kong Arcade Intellivision/ A

Posted: October 5th, 2011, 11:01 am
by Stephen

Opinions? Critism? Any comments?


Donkey Kong Arcade Intellivision/ A

Posted: October 7th, 2011, 9:21 pm
by Logan Ruckman
Great review, and from what I've heard about this game, it's in some ways actually better than the arcade version, like the extra characters.