Donkey Kong Obsession

Lately I have been obsessed with the classic arcade game from Nintendo, Donkey Kong. Ever since I seen King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters on Netflix, I have been trying my hardest to get my hands on any port of the game. Having a M.A.M.E. original Donkey Kong cabinet would be the best, unfortunately they are rare to come by and are way out of my price range. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a great documentary directed by Seth Gordon, and a must see by any lover of arcade games and classic games. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a 2007 American documentary that follows Steve Wiebe as he tries to take the world record high score for the arcade game Donkey Kong from reigning champion and douchebag Billy Mitchell. I was lucky enough to seen it on Netflix, but I recently heard it's not Netflix's catalogue anymore.

The fact that Donkey Kong was around six years before I was born in 1987, I am not too familiar with the game. Not like I knew nothing before I seen King of Kong, there are just some things that every hardcore gamer know. It was the first game to feature two of Nintendo more predominant characters, Mario and Donkey Kong. Some would argue that it also features Princess Peach, but anyone that knows their shit, will tell you her name is Pauline and definitely isn't Peach. Yes that is right! Mario is a two timing fuck. Originally, Mario was called Jumpman and Pauline was just called, Lady. Made apparently clear in A Fistful of Quarters, is that Donkey Kong is notoriously difficult game. Some guy from the movie stated that most people can't play more then a minute and if they can, they rarely make it past the third board.

Guess I should explain the game to those of you that don't know. Even those I am more familiar with Donkey Kong Country then the original Thanks to the powers of the internet, I have gotten a good port of the game and have learned a lot. The game is divided into four different one-screen stages. Each represents 25 meters of the structure Donkey Kong has climbed, one stage being 25 meters higher than the previous. Mario must scale a seven-story construction site made of crooked girders and ladders while jumping over or hammering barrels thrown by Donkey Kong. Mario must also avoid flaming balls, which generate when an oil barrel collides with the oil drum. Players routinely call this screen "Barrels". There is three other screens, "Factory", "Elevators", and "Rivets" that are name after the layout of each screen. These screens combine to form levels, which become progressively tougher. Believe me they do get tougher.

My first experience with classic Kong Kong was for the Intellivision console from Mattel. I found a copy of the game in the original box for really cheap at a local pawn shop. I was a little confused because the box had Nintendo logo across it but was made by Coleco. Still I was excited to play it, but the excitement was short lived. This was the worst port of the game, it looked and played nothing like the NES port or at the arcade. I looked into it and think that Coleco made it shitty on purpose to make their own console, The Colecovision, look better. According to Wikipedia;

"Makers of video game consoles were also interested. Taito offered a considerable sum to buy all rights to Donkey Kong, but Nintendo turned them down^. Rivals Coleco and Atari approached Nintendo in Japan and the United States respectively. In the end, Nintendo granted Coleco exclusive console and tabletop rights to Donkey Kong because he felt that "It [was] the hungriest company". In addition, Arakawa felt that as a more established company in the US, Coleco could better handle marketing. In return, Nintendo would receive an undisclosed lump sum plus $1.40 per game cartridge sold and $1 per tabletop unit."

Wish I had this...

Since Donkey Kong for Intellivision suck um... well... Donkey Dick, I was still looking for a good port of Donkey Kong. A co-worker told me about how she had to beat the classic Donkey Kong to get a golden banana in Donkey Kong 64. That's it! I knew I could find a copy of Donkey Kong 64 at my mother's house. I found it and brought it home, but it wouldn't work. Couldn't figure out why. After trying everything to get this damn game working, the answer was right there on the cover-art of the box. Expansion Pack included! The Nintendo 64 is was testing it on didn't have the expansion pack. Two out of three of my Nintendo 64's have them. but of course I was using the one without it.

Been playing Donkey Kong 64 for a couple of nights now before bed, trying to get to the third stage. Somewhere in the third stage you can play a old school arcade machine with Donkey Kong on. You only have to complete the four screens once for the golden banana, and/or twice for the only Nintendo Coin in the game. Before I could get to the third stage, I found a pretty good deal on a Nintendo Wii. It's a brand new red Nintendo Wii with one controller and New Super Mario Bros. Just fucking around in the Wii Store, I stumbled on to Donkey Kong for Nintendo Entertainment System on Wii's Virtual Console. Jackpot, I am pretty sure that this is the closes I am going to get to playing classic arcade style Donkey Kong. I also got Bubble Bobble, Super C and Legend of Zedla. Not too bad for a hundred bucks.

It's RED!!!

Now all of today has been wasted on playing DK, trying for high scores. My Brother and I, have been battling it out for a good eight hours today. I set the bar pretty low around 40,000, then he got 50,000. It stayed at that for quite a while, when I got just over 60,000. I was sure that was where it was going to stay for the rest of the night. Then out of nowhere, my Brother got 60,400! Took me a while to get a good run in, but I busted out a good 70,000 score. By the end of the night my Brother holds the score at 78,200 with me only trailing behind by 200 points.

Oh before I forget I should mention that this version of Donkey Kong only has three screens per level. They excluded the factory screen. I am not sure how many levels are in the game. The highest level we have seen so far is screen one on level five. Arcade Donkey Kong only goes up to the 22nd screen, before the memory runs out. You can play for a few seconds before Mario just ups and dies on you. They call this a Killscreen, I guess it is rare sight to be seen. Not sure this is what happens on NES or not.

According to the Twin Galaxies website, the highest score achieved on the Wii Virtual Console was 1,125,350! With our scores we would get around 20th place. Which isn't too bad but the top five scores are all in the high hundred thousands. Looks like I have some more practising to do...  

     

Intellivision Might Be One of the Worst Consoles Ever

Last night, I tested out everyone of my Intellivision Games. They all worked, Donkey Kong was the only game to give me trouble. Just needed to be inserted nice and good. After playing all those games, I came to one conclusion... Intellivision is a horrible console.

I may be a little bias, considering I remember playing Space Invaders, Astroids, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong on Atari 2600. It was just like playing them in the Arcade. They do have most of these games for Intellivision but I haven't played them yet. All I do know is that Donkey Kong is an abomination, personally I believe Coleco sabotage Donkey Kong for Intellivision. They wanted the one for Colecovision to look and play better. The only game I think I could play for more then five minutes would be Skiing. That is some solid alpine racing!

Intellivision debuted in 1979 and was released as a competitor to the Atari 2600. Over 3 million Intellvison consoles were sold before it was discontinued in 1983, with a total of 125 games were released for the console. For the four years the console was out it, received good reviews and in 2009, IGN named the Intellivision the No. 14 greatest video game console of all time. Yet, the controller was ranked the fourth worst video game controller by IGN Editor Craig Harris.

My Intellivision collection might be one of the more complete sets I have seen. All of the games work, and most of the boxes has instructions with controller inlays. The actually game boxes could be in better condition, the cardboard is old and damaged in the seams. Still all and all, pretty fucking good for being from the late Seventies. On ebay and a like, I have seen collections like this go for anywhere from $100 to $500. Still think I would be lucky to get 200, but not too bad for what I paid for it. Still going to be on the look out for other games I don't have.

None of this means I like this system...   

To see pictures related to this article, go to...

Some Pictures of Today's Buys.

Here are a ton of pictures of a good score I got at King of Trade in Lethbridge, Alberta. King of Trade is usually a rip off for older games. They are better for new games, but like any other pawn shop, for older vintage games it's a rip off. It doesn't even have to be a good game. You'll also finded a ton of sport games, shit... mostly sport games actually. The store is fill with them, you have to sift your way through them to find the good games. The store is filled with them because a new one comes out ever year, so every year they becomes obsolete. I still can't believe I got these games.

I picked up Space Armada, Advanced Dungeon and Dragons and the best find of the year... Donkey Kong! All for Intellivision, I have never seen so much Intellivision shit at a pawn shop before. Used to seeing NESs and Super NESs, Sega Genesis and lots of newer systems, never have I seen a Intellivison in the store. The only one there was for sale for a hundred dollars, last time I checked, I could buy one online for twenty bucks. I thought I was getting ripped off when I bought one from my buddy for eighty dollars. It was a bundle, with a system and fourteen game cartridges and boxes. Most of them complete with box, cartridge and controller inlays. I value the collection at one fifty, to two hundred big ones to the right person. I think I got a good deal.

Another sweet score at the pawn shop was that I got some pieces to complete some games. For instance, I got Sonic 2 cartridge for Sega Genesis, where I already had a empty box with instruction manual. Vise versa for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, I needed the box but already had a cartridge and instruction manual. Luckily for me, I bought a Advance Dungeons and Dragons game without the instruction manual, now I have a extra D&D game cartridge. The rest of the games I bought, was because of the memories they held in my childhood.

Me and my Father played Road Rash back in the 90's when I five or six years old. He is really into Motorcycles and I grew up around them my whole life. Strange though was my Dad didn't get into street bikes till recently. WCW/NWO Revenge is one of the best wrestling video games out there. It captures the essence of Professional Wrestling, just mindless entertainment. I remember playing it with my friend G.R., high as a Giraffe's cunt. We would sit in his Mom's basement and play that game for hours, everyday. Fuck, it might have been the game before it, WCW vs NWO, I can't remember... I was high a lot when I was sixteen...     

Tomb Raider is made just for teenage boys to jerk off too...

I have been playing Tomb Raider: Underworld lately, I haven't got too far. No need to. Not a solid game, might be the best looking Tomb Raider game out but feels like a cheap version of Uncharted. The graphic's upgrade is a nice touch, Lara's tits and ass never looked so good. I think is the reason the game got so popular, sex appeal. I have played Tomb Raider: Underworld for Nintendo DS and Playstation 3, it's not a good game that wil keep you playing. I play it when I am bored and don't feel like playing anything else.

I did enjoy the first couple Tomb Raiders, it was new. It was the first of it's kind, well first of it's kind since Pitfall. Plus it had a hot ass heroin to control. Complete with plenty of ass and cleavage shots, which the newest one doesn't miss out on. Tomb Raider was a good game until nerds like me actually got laid. Seeing females on picture and video was good until we have touched and felt the real thing. Sex has been used to sell everything since the dawn of time, so why not video games? It has one of the best target audiences of all markets... Nerds.

Honestly why would a kid be at home playing video games if he could be out chasing tail?

Of course this is a patch...