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Intellivision Donkey Kong: Worst game ever?


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I have been an Atari loyalist all my life, but I just got my first Intellivision (yesterday) and I finally got to play the small handful of Intellivision games I have acquired over time. One of them was Donkey Kong.

 

Now we've all heard that Coleco deliberately made the Atari 2600 and Intellivision versions of the game bad, so Colecovision would look better by comparison. I'm not sure I would believe that... the Atari version isn't THAT bad, especially considering the inherent limitations of the platform.

 

But man, that Intellivision version sucks!

 

I have read that it may have been incompetence and haste, not malice, that resulted in the abominable Intellivision version... Coleco didn't have any programmers who understood the Intellivision, and they were in too much of a hurry to rush the game onto store shelves. This seems the most plausible explanation.

 

I am starting to have more respect for the fact that the Intellivision II was deliberately wired to make Donkey Kong not work.

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  • 6 years later...
Yeah but intellivision has that DK clone Beauty and the Beast put out by Imagic. That game rocks!!!

 

Good call, Beauty and the Beast is a great game and 1000x better than INTV DK.

 

The Imagic and Activision games on the INTV really stand out from the rest of the libary. Most of those games are good to excellent. They are really the only games I still play on my INTV.

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Yeah but intellivision has that DK clone Beauty and the Beast put out by Imagic. That game rocks!!!

 

Good call, Beauty and the Beast is a great game and 1000x better than INTV DK.

 

The Imagic and Activision games on the INTV really stand out from the rest of the libary. Most of those games are good to excellent. They are really the only games I still play on my INTV.

 

I agreee. There are very few Mattel games that I actually play...Burger Time, Lock N Chase, Astrosmash...thats about it.

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Donkey Kong on the Inty is pretty crummy, but not the worst game ever. It could be the worst Donkey Kong game ever, though. I hated those nasty metallic sound effects... when you jumped over barrels, the delightful little tune that plays has been transformed into the last sound you hear when a Dalek blasts your brain.

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Wrong answer! At least the VIC-20 version of Donkey Kong has all the intermissions and all four rounds. It may look like ass (OK, it DOES look like ass), but in many ways it's a more accurate port than many other versions of the game, including the overrated ColecoVision port.

 

EDIT: Whoops, this is NOT the Donkey Kong I had in mind. Atarisoft's version is a whole lot better. I can't find any clips of it on YouTube, but there's brief footage of the game in one of my videos.

Edited by Jess Ragan
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  • 1 month later...
Wrong answer! At least the VIC-20 version of Donkey Kong has all the intermissions and all four rounds. It may look like ass (OK, it DOES look like ass), but in many ways it's a more accurate port than many other versions of the game, including the overrated ColecoVision port.

 

EDIT: Whoops, this is NOT the Donkey Kong I had in mind. Atarisoft's version is a whole lot better. I can't find any clips of it on YouTube, but there's brief footage of the game in one of my videos.

 

 

Colecoversion======Overrated???????

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Wrong answer! At least the VIC-20 version of Donkey Kong has all the intermissions and all four rounds. It may look like ass (OK, it DOES look like ass), but in many ways it's a more accurate port than many other versions of the game, including the overrated ColecoVision port.

Colecoversion======Overrated???????

When you really break it down and get past the better looking GFX, yeah, it is.

 

  • DK is on the wrong side on level 1
  • Level 1 is missing a girder.
  • Level 2 is missing a girder.
  • Level 3 doesn't have the bouncy things, just fireballs.
  • Only had 3 levels.
  • Poor controll regarding ladders and hammers.

It's not just about GFX (speaking of which, the fireballs look horrid). -- Accuracy, Controll, etc. means something too, and to that end, Coleco's version wasn't any better then anything else.

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Did anyone see that YouTube vid of Donkey Kong on the CoCo3? That looked arcade perfect!

 

It *is* perfect, it's a direct port of the rom, and it's free.

 

The Coco may be much maligned, but it has the best version of DK out there: the arcade game :)

 

And yeah, DK on the Inty is bad, but it's no worse than some other titles I've played. By no means is it the worst game of all time.

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When you really break it down and get past the better looking GFX, yeah, it is.

 

There's a number of glitches as well. 2 of them work to the player's advantage:

 

Pause (even for a split-second will do) on a ladder to climb quicker.

 

Walk off a slanted girder to drop the hammer. Good if you want to pick up some quick kills headed your way without being confined to a single girder for the full duration. Falling in this manner can also get you across small gaps in some cases (no need to jump onto the first elevator IIRC, you can just run and fall onto it).

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As far as Coleco making games bad for other systems deliberately to make the CV ones look better?..RUUUUUUBISH ,TENFOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.It was obvious CV'S version were better looking playing,in some cases,didnt have to make 3rd party ports crap to prove it.Do you mean INTV DK the worst game as a whole?or just the worst game for the INTV only?If its the worst for the INTV,i dont think so,in looks,probably,but i find it plays well.Is it the worst video game overall?..NOPE far from it.

Edited by Rik
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As far as Coleco making games bad for other systems deliberately to make the CV ones look better?..RUUUUUUBISH ,TENFOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Yeah I think that old rumor has been pretty much disproven now. It was more programmers with no experience on other systems and Coleco looking to make a quick buck than anything else. If Coleco were going to purposely make their games look bad on other systems, they would have done them under a third party name rather than tarnish their name.

 

Tempest

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But man, that Intellivision version sucks!

It certainly didn't have to suck. Carl Mueller, Jr. has an incomplete port he's done here that blows away just about any other home system's version, including CV.

 

It's not complete, sadly. What's missing is the "outer game loop" stuff. The in-game sections are very complete. All four boards are present, even.

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I think that when people state that the CV version is so great, they are comparing it to the major competition of the time, the Atari 2600 and the Mattel Intellivision ports. In that instance, yes the CV version is amazing but not a perfect translation of the arcade original in any right. There were definately better versions on lesser known consoles and/or home computers though. The ADAM version, while graphically identical to the CV version, is closer in gameplay to the arcade version due to the extra storage space allowed on the Data Packs vs. that of a cartridge. The ADAM version includes animations, cut scenes, springboards, and a super sweet high score save feature. I've got a few copies each of some of the ADAM supergame packs and it's hilarious to see that high scores are still saved on them some 25 years later. Especially the ones where the crafty children entered swear words as their names!

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