Donkey Kong



Donkey Kong first arrived in the arcades in 1981 as the game that Shigeru Miyamoto designed to replace the ill-fated arcade game Radar Scope. It featured a mustachioed man in brightly colored overalls who would go on to achieve monumental fame and bring Nintendo a lot of fortune. Originally he was simply called Jumpman and was labeled a carpenter, he was eventually named and identified as a plumber.

When Donkey Kong became popular, Atari sought to buy the home rights to the game. But at that time, Coleco bid for the rights as well when trying to snag a killer launch title for their soon to be released ColecoVision. Coleco got the home cartridge rights while Atari ended up with the computer diskette rights. This arrangement worked out well until it backfired at the 1983 CES show, where Coleco presented their enhanced version of Donkey Kong for the Coleco ADAM computer. Atari, upset over the breach of contract, ordered Nintendo to make Coleco shut down the display.

When the Famicom launched in 1983, Nintendo provided their three biggest arcade hits as launch titles. Donkey Kong was an obvious choice. The Famicom conversion is a very close port of the original game with only minimally altered graphics, but sadly featuring the omission of the conveyor belt stage. Despite the missing stage, the remaining three stages make it in tact, and provide all of the same challenges found the arcade version.

Story
Donkey Kong lays eyes on Mario's girlfriend Pauline and is instantly smitten, driving Donkey Kong to capture Pauline in his clutches and climb to the top of the construction site where Mario works. Mario is determined to get Pauline back, but Donkey Kong hurls barrels and employs fire to hinder the carpenter's efforts. Guide Mario through the gauntlet and up to the top before time and Pauline's patience runs out!