Review for: Donkey Kong (Arcade, NES) |
Written by: Beau West                 |
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==============
 Introduction
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For those of you who don't really know what this game is, it was pretty much
the original Nintendo Game released in the US. A bit of the history is that
Shigiru Myamoto was presented with the job of making a game. That game turned
out to be Donkey Kong and Hiroshi Yamouchi proclaimed it good and it was
shipped off to the US. Many people thought it would be a complete flop, but
when they got it out, they were amazed by the amount of quarters people were
dishing out to play it!

Donkey Kong was later released on the NES and was packaged with Donkey Kong Jr.
It is three levels long and is the same thing over and over as it gets faster.
But who can beat that?


Gameplay 9/10
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The gameplay is very fun. Very simple. Jump over barrels, gaps, onto elevators,
climb ladders, get key. That's one of the things that makes this game so great.
There are 3 levels that you just play over as everything gets faster.


Story: 8/10
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Thinking about it, the story is perfect for this game.

Monkey (Donkey Kong) steals man's (Mario) girlfriend (Pauline). Go rescue her
Mario!

The story behind the story is that the NOA team was renting an old warehouse
for their headquarters and the owner (whose name was Mario) came in as they
were working on a title for the game. He was mad and mean, in the game Mario 
was originally the bad guy (he was mistreating the monkey).


Graphics: 8/10
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You have to think of things in relevance to the timeline. Donkey Kong is an old
game. Nevertheless, it has very good graphics for it's time. Originally Mario
didn't have his red hat, but the programmers were complaining to Shigiru 
Myamoto that people would be expecting his hair to fly up when he fell. So
Myamoto said to just put a hat on him. 
I don't really know how the graphics were on the old arcade systems. I'm not
that old. =) But I imagine they were pretty much the same as the NES graphics.
Somewhat similar to Super Mario Bros. but slightly worse.


Sound: 8/10
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The sound effects in this game were great considering the timeline. It only
has one song that it plays on the title screen, and the rest of the sounds are
in-game. You can't beat the "sqeaking" Mario makes as he walks along and the
sound when he makes climbing the ladders. Other sounds include barrels, spring
platforms and death. (maybe others)


Replayability: Very High
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It's one of those games that you can play over and over, even if it's just a
few minutes at a time. I personally don't like to play more than 10 minutes
here and there, but it keeps you coming back for more.

Overall: 8/10
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If you want a fun game that is original and simple, this is it. True, it isn't
the best game ever created, but it is a classic and a very good one at that.