Random Game 'O the Day: Donkey Kong (Intellivision)

[digitalpress]

Forget every decent Donkey Kong version you've ever played, because today is DAY THREE of "Nasty Week" and our DP Random Crap-o-meter (tm) has reached into it's vast core with rubber gloves, pinched it's nose, grabbed Intellivision Donkey Kong and dropped it a safe distance from itself.

Now it's your turn to pick it up.

So. What do you think?

DP Guide sez:

Donkey Kong (Intellivision, by Coleco) $4/R2 -
Based on the 1981 Nintendo coin-op. Original arcade game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto. Coleco's first release for Intellivision has been called "intentionally inferior" over the years. Either the folks at Coleco just weren't willing or able to take advantage of what the system had to offer, of they were trying to make the Intellivision version look bad in comparison to the version on their own ColecoVision system. Action/Platform/Fixed Screen. SANTULLI SLANT: Yes, it seems third party developers had some problems getting the most out of the Mattel console's 16-bit technology. It really shows here. The familiar looking game looks strangely unfamiliar on Intellivision, with odd sounds, slow-motion action, and horrific controls. Coleco got better with Ladybug and Turbo later on, but this early effort just plain sucks. [Gr: 2, So: 2, Ga: 3, Ov: 3]

[ubersaurus]

I think this may well be worse then 2600 pac-man.

[Captain Wrong]

I think this may well be worse then 2600 pac-man.

High possibility. Sad b/c the INTV could do much better than this.

[ManekiNeko]

Heh, October was shitty NES games month on The Gameroom Blitz!

Anyway, I've played Donkey Kong on the Intellivision, and yep, it's pretty weak. It's not a totally unredeemable arcade translation, but the difference in quality between it and Beauty and the Beast is painfully obvious. BatB had gorgeous graphics filled with color and detail, while the artwork in Intv Donkey Kong is as lifeless as Steve Urkel's acting career. BatB had pleasant little tunes that played as you reached the top of each screen. Intv Donkey Kong has some of the harshest sound you'll ever hear on the system... jumping over barrels results in a reproduction of the arcade sound effect that's so shrill and painful you'll be left longing for the sweet, sweet music of fingernails scratching against a chalkboard. The gameplay is the only thing in Intv Donkey Kong that makes it even vaguely appealing... it's slow, but not entirely without merit.

JR

[IntvGene]

It's quite dreadful in so many ways... putting Pauline in the background sprites, awful sound (Mario's movement rivals Pacman's chomping in the 2600), even the controls are bad, only two levels out of the four. I think Mattel did us all a favor by locking out the Coleco games on the Intellivision II.

I would have loved to see what Mattel themselves (or any programmer willing to try to make a good version) would have produced instead.

[SoulBlazer]

Wait a second -- the game being covered is DK Jr but the pic is of DK?

[ubersaurus]

It's quite dreadful in so many ways... putting Pauline in the background sprites, awful sound (Mario's movement rivals Pacman's chomping in the 2600), even the controls are bad, only two levels out of the four. I think Mattel did us all a favor by locking out the Coleco games on the Intellivision II.

I would have loved to see what Mattel themselves (or any programmer willing to try to make a good version) would have produced instead.

If I recall, the Mattel programmers wanted to make their own version of DK, and not sell it, but show it off to the public just to say "look what the INTV can do".

[Querjek]

Is it worse than the Atari 2600 version?

[digitalpress]

Is it worse than the Atari 2600 version?

Yes.

If you can believe this, I really enjoyed the Atari 2600 version of Donkey Kong. It's far from a good arcade PORT - I just think the game itself plays well, it stands on its own merits despite the fact that it's missing so many of the coin-op's familiar trappings.

[AB Positive]

I at one point had both the INTV and CV versions of Donky Kong in my house, and dear god, could I not stand the INTV version. Now, I'm not a big fan of the INTV but it has some great games. Great great games. This isn't one of them.

I immediatly ripped this out of the INTV and popped in Burgertime.

-AG

[klimatron8]

Fifteen years later and I'm still trying to figure out exactly when to jump! (nope -earlier) Playing this game would actually screw up your timing on every other game in the library. Add in the annoying sounds and crappy graphics...

[NE146]

Since I wasn't an Intellivision guy as a kid (I didn't get my first Intellivison until 1991-ish or so) I can't say I've ever played this game outside of emulation It gets a little hard to judge something like this, seeing it after the fact with RETROVISION As it is, it aint the best.. but I guess it looks and plays ok.. for an old game. But I'm sure I wouldn't have been so kind had I played it back in the day. :P

[Retsudo]

Boy do I remember this game well. I use to laugh at it everytime I played it. But I played a lot and didnt have to put Quarters in to play it. Then I remember seeing it on Colecovision at a friends house and wished I had that instead.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

The great thing about Donkey Kong for the Intellivision, the truly, blindingly awesome thing about it that everyone seems to have missed, is that there's this great feature where you can remove it from the cartridge slot and put Imagic's Beauty & The Beast in there instead. That feature improves the graphics and gameplay about six zillion percent, I've found, and vindicates the (IMO quite correct) school of thought that the Intellivison could've handled a better Donkey Kong port than that.

The Coleco tabletop Donkey Kong is better than that company's turkey of an Intellivision version of the same game.

[o2william]

During the Intellivision's heyday, I didn't know anybody who owned one. Later I met a friend who used to have one, and he always talked about how great it was -- especially Night Stalker and BurgerTime. Then in '96 or so I finally found one at a thrift store. It came with one game: Donkey Kong. I was so excited to finally see this machine in action! Then I fired it up and got... this.

I sold that Inty soon after.

Since then, I've picked up a Super Video Arcade and a larger collection, so I now appreciate the system a lot more. (If only it had better controllers...)

[Zaxxon]

I've heard this fable a million times now. Does anyone actually believe that Coleco management would tell their programmer to deliberately piss away an extremely valuable arcade license like Donkey Kong just to spite Mattel/INTV owners? Why not do the same with the other Coleco ports? Even if they put Super Programmer on the job it still would never look or sound as good as CV because of INTV's lower res graphics/inferior sound chip. It's not like Coleco was the only developer and people wouldn't see Imagic's game graphics. Wouldn't someone have been able to track down someone who worked at Coleco by now to verify this legend?

I thought it was odd how Atarisoft did such excellent arcade ports for CV. It made Atari's systems look bad in comparison.

[wberdan]

I've heard this fable a million times now. Does anyone actually believe that Coleco management would tell their programmer to deliberately piss away an extremely valuable arcade license like Donkey Kong just to spite Mattel/INTV owners? Why not do the same with the other Coleco ports? Even if they put Super Programmer on the job it still would never look or sound as good as CV because of INTV's lower res graphics/inferior sound chip. It's not like Coleco was the only developer and people wouldn't see Imagic's game graphics. Wouldn't someone have been able to track down someone who worked at Coleco by now to verify this legend?

I thought it was odd how Atarisoft did such excellent arcade ports for CV. It made Atari's systems look bad in comparison.

funny you should say that about atarisoft- i will share with you a quote from an ex employee of atarisoft re: the unreleased pac-man for colecovision

"...at the last minute some higher-up in the management chain had a realization... "Wait a minute!! This is Pac-Man -- our biggest-selling, Atari-format, exclusive title! We can't publish this on a competing hardware platform."

it is funny that they didnt have that realization with some of the other atarisoft titles... i mean, that seems kind of stupid to publish games for another system when you have a competing system.

willie

[Zaxxon]

it is funny that they didnt have that realization with some of the other atarisoft titles... i mean, that seems kind of stupid to publish games for another system when you have a competing system.

willie

I thought it was stupid for Coleco to make these for Atari/INTV. I guess they probably needed to recoup some of the money they had to pay out for DK, which they just gave away as their free pack-in, after being rooked in that deal they signed with Nintendo.