Every Easter morning when I was little I would wake up to a room full of hidden chocolates and a small gift to cerebrate the occasion. I still remember on one of those Easter mornings when I got up to do my annual egg hunt, there on the table was Donkey Kong for the Intellivision. I don’t remember if I found all the eggs that morning, but I do remember running downstairs to play the game. It was just one of those gifts that always seemed to stick with me as a child!
To this day I feel that Donkey Kong is my favourite game and yet I can’t put my finger on why that is?
It could be as simple as that Easter morning, but I would like to think there is more to it than that. Even when I was a little older and started going to arcades, the first machine I would look for would be Donkey Kong. Not only that but I was determined to play the game on as many platforms as I could. It always amazed me that no matter how different the graphics looked and how many levels that game had, I would never grow tired of playing it.
There are many differences among each port of Donkey Kong that they each feel like entirely different games. The Intellivision version is probably one of the worst as far as graphics and game play go, and I am not too crazy about the Atari 2600 version either. Both versions only have two stages available, which can make the game really dull really fast. For whatever reason the other two stages only appear on certain ports, I was shocked when I found out the NES version only had 3 stages (out of all of them I would expect that port to have them all). The Collecovision came packed with the game and its port was actually not that bad, that is until Atari 7800 version that is. If I had to choose a favourite it would probably be the Commodore 64 port, it has great graphics & sound as well as all four stages including the often left out pie stage. I am not sure why that forth stage was usually left out, its not like the systems couldn’t handle it? But that is a question for another day!
Its not only the the Donkey Kong video game either that I like, there are also the board games that I just had to have. It was not easy tracking them down, although I did get lucky finding the card game in a thrift store. The board game is obviously not as exciting as the video game, its quite difficult to translate a game from video to cardboard so I understand its limitations. There are also several other games that include the giant ape that I did take an interest in, Donkey Kong Jr and Donkey Kong country are two. They are both great games and I enjoy playing them, I would say that Donkey Kong Jr is probably my favorite of the two.
To this day I still have that same Donkey Kong cartridge for the Intellivision from that Easter, even when I sold my system I refused to sell the game. Its crazy how we could have sentimental attachments to things like a video game, so many memories of people and places tend to stick with them. And when it comes down to all the different video games I have ever played, its for sure Donkey Kong that remains my personal favourite.
Brian Pudden