Videogame Review, Donkey Kong for the Sears Super Video Arcade Console (Used Machine)

Videogame Review, Donkey Kong for the Sears Super Video Arcade Console (Used Machine)

It’s broken!  No, not literally.  What I mean to say is that Donkey Kong for the Intellivision through my Sears console is bad and poorly made.  Do you see Donkey Kong the gorilla in my gameplay picture?  He’s totally green!  The barrels are also kind of green.  In addition, the rails, ladders, oil barrel, and princess are all the same color except for the oil barrel’s printed word “OIL”.  Controls are buggy, too.  Often I’m tapping away at the disc to get Mario anywhere.  Ladders become more of an obstacle than necessary; in fact, even if Mario’s toes are barely an inch on the ladder he won’t move away from it.  Coleco decided to manage Mario’s jumping gravity through the Intellivision console’s 16-bit glory and, ironically, this damages Donkey Kong greatly because Mario’s positioning near the rolling barrels is too complicated to make out for an expert player of Donkey Kong like myself.  How could a novice player fair with this game in the early-80’s?  The game practically bombed in the marketplace.  You’ll find that only so many people actually purchased the Intellivision “classic”.  Of course, there’s still completely brand new versions of the Intellivision game out there on eBay and elsewhere: other guys just simply have not wanted to buy this game.  We’re talking about a time for some disco, early 80’s, Sears’ dominance, etc.  Music in the game is like the blowing of a horn.  While it may be easy to accept this Donkey Kong port on the commonplace perception of old video games- “Well, it’s old and it has aged.”- we have to look at Lock ’N’ Chase for the same Intellivision console since that game has way more colors and neat sound effects than this Donkey Kong port.  It’s a shame.  The jumping controls would’ve been easy and relaxing if it weren’t for the buggy movements and awful gravity mechanics.  Mario sounds like a puppy who can’t find his pants!  My mom has told me that while I was playing this Intellivision “classic” in the pink bedroom the sounds were blaring out into the hallway and into the grand living room like blazing thuds.  Although the volume is extreme, the music doesn’t please.  Donkey Kong himself appears in different forms as barrels are rolled and tossed and it seemed like he transformed into different animals from the barrel-throwing action.  Mario has no eyes, barely a nose, an ugly chin, and thus had lost face in this port in disgrace.  Each menu prior to gameplay is totally black; that’s not right, because Donkey Kong from the arcade was a cheerful, funny game, not a dark, gruesome picture.  Fans of this Intellivision “classic” actually give it no more than a “C” on average but to me this is a complete dud.