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...