Producer: Ocean
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Sentient Software

Some three years after the first Kong games appeared, and after two attempts at Kong games themselves OCEAN have now released an officially licensed version of the NINTENDO arcade game Donkey Kong.

A damsel is in extreme distress - she's been captured by a mad gorilla who has scurried into a partly completed building with her. Enter Mario the carpenter, rescuer of fair damsels. Mario has to make his way up four sections of the building, using ladders, ramps and lifts while the enraged monkey rains missiles down on his head.

Mario earns points in several ways. Leaping over the missiles Kong hurls at him adds to the score, and jumping several missiles at once is particularly rewarding. Hammers can be collected which allow the hero to stop jumping and start pulverising projectiles for extra points - but their power only lasts for a while. Some objects can be collected, and yield points when Mario picks them up. Finally, a bonus meter at the top of the screen ticks down as Mario dallies on the way, and the points remaining on the clock when a sheet is completed are added to the overall score.

Kong's stock of weapons never runs out. The objects he hurls all obey the laws of gravity, bouncing along the platforms and skittering down ladders. If Mario touches a missile he loses one of his three lives. Care has to be taken when using ladders or leaping a trundling projectile as Mario can touch a missile moving along a higher platform while avoiding another on the current platform. To make matters more complicated for the heroic carpenter, semi-intelligent fireballs move around the screen oblivious to the calls of gravity - they can move left and right and up and down ladders.

On the first screen Mario has to contend with rolling barrels, on the second he is faced with deadly pies and conveyor belts while lifts and bouncing nasties appear on the third sheet. In the final confrontation with Kong on the fourth screen, Mario has to dodge rampant fireballs while removing rivets from the network of girders. When the rivets are removed the insane monkey falls and Mario gets the girl... until Kong recovers and the whole process starts over again!

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable: up, down, left, right, jump
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Use of colour: garish and simple
Graphics: simplistic with unsophisticated animation
Sound: unremarkable tune and effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: four

So why are OCEAN releasing a conversion from an arcade machine that's as old as the hills - and wasn't really much good in its day? The thing that really confuses me is that they've done a Kong lookalike already, weird! The game is without a doubt the best Kong game around, but that's not really saying much. The gameplay is a little more difficult than on the arcade machine, but it's not very compelling so I couldn't really be bothered to complete it. The graphics and sound are about average for this type of game: nothing remarkable. On the whole I feel that this would be better as a budget game, or even as a freebie on the back of one of OCEAN'S better titles, but not as a full-price game.
BEN

Bit late folks! is this a licence that OCEAN haven't used, or do they really think that this will set the software industry alight? I wasn't expecting much from this because the game is very bad and outdated. The graphics are badly drawn and move at a very slow pace. I didn't find anything in Donkey Kong that made me jump about with excitement. It's not the programmers' fault that the game is bad, it is just that OCEAN have released it at least two years too late.
PAUL

This is strange indeed! How come OCEAN are releasing a game like Donkey Kong, which is only a souped-up version of their earlier Kong'? The original was renowned for its bugs, but this one at least seems to be free of them - and I should think so after all this time! Why anyone would want a conversion of an arcade machine that's been around for I don't how many years is a mystery to me, but then again, if you're one of the dedicated followers (there must be one of you, somewhere!) then this is about as close as you're going to get to the original on the Spectrum.
MIKE

Ocean
£7.95

I know that the Nintendo games console is supposed to be the next big thing, but is that any reason to do an official version of the big Nintendo hit from the Spectrum's early history?

Donkey Kong was a good arcade game and this is a good conversion, with all the frills, including the 'How high can you get?' dare and Donkey stomping the girders at the start. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's better than any of the versions that appeared all those years ago.

The animation is good and the sound is great too. But so they should be. This game is so simple it could lead to a 16K revival! The plot is unbelievably basic. Mario has to climb the scaffolding to rescue his girlfriend, while Donkey rolls barrels down onto him.

Most of the time Mario shelters on ladders, which is risky because a barrel could roll clown on him, or vaults the rolling vats. But there are a few hammers to break them up. Beware of the oil drums though. They hit the fire at the bottom then ascend the ladders to singe our hero.

Okay, I admit, Donkey Kong is still fairly addictive if you're looking for some mindless, nostalgic fun. But at full price! Perhaps Ocean is into time travel but this is too much for a ticket to 1983.

Label: Ocean
Price: £7.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

"Everyone," says Ocean "is going ape over Donkey Kong.' Tsk tsk. Not only is this statement possibly the most horrible pun in the universe, but it is completely untrue.

People weren't even particularly excited three years ago when Ocean's other version of the game appeared - Kong.

The plot centres around the kidnapping of the hero's blonde girlfriend by an enormous ape who attempts to escape on a platform of even-higher iron girders. Mario, the hero, must negotiate the assault course of falling barrels, fireballs and dodgy ladders.

In fact, when you take a long look at the two games - the original Kong and this effort - you realise that apart from some graphics changes, and some improved sound on the new game, there has been virtually no development in the three-year space.

It seems that Ocean has merely put right most of the mistakes they made with the original Kong.

Hardly the correct idea really.

Various
Ocean
Arcade
£8.95

A new release from Ocean. What? Donkey Kong? Was that not an arcade game about four years ago which spawned numerous clone games? To answer those questions, this 'new' release is, in fact, the official version, even if it is a few years late.

Staying very close to the original, only without the cuddly character - called Mario, I believe - the game still has you trying to rescue your fair maiden and dodging barrels, fireballs, custard pies et al. It is created by Arcana Software, the company which recently received praise for its Trivia-type game, Power Play.

Graphically, Donkey Kong is not bad and is just as much fun to play now as it ever was but that still is not sufficient to justify a price identical to games such as Sentinel and World Games, which are state-of-the-art in graphics, sound and gameplay.

Priced as it is. Donkey Kong, is poor value. It lacks everything which distinguishes full-price games from their budget brothers. Once you have completed all four levels, something a competent gamer could achieve in less than an hour, the game just repeats, a little more difficult but not much else.

If Ocean had a budget label, this would have been the hit of the year and it would probably have made more money than releasing it as a poor, full-price game.