Page 21 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #1

levels existed. The Japanese ver- sion version was so bad, why did it Luckily for us, Atari and Atarisoft
sion simply cycled through the sell the system?” The answer lies obtained the rights to the home
above order. After the rivet screen, in Coleco owning the rights to all computer version. The version for
Donkey console system Atari computer systems was much
Kong versions. Coleco more accurate. All the music, ani-
would fall programmed the mation and intermissions were pre-
from the already limited Atari sent. The screens followed the ar-
disas- 2600 (VCS) ver- cade’s original order and even fea-
sembled sion. This one only tured the conveyor belt screen.
structure, consisted of two However, due to the lower resolu-
and levels, the barrels tion, the screens were not all that
Mario and rivets. The cosmetically appealing and the top
would be barrel screen was level of the barrels screen was cut
reunited so limited one off. All enemies were included, al-
with couldn’t even walk though the fireballs and firefoxes
Paula. Commodore 64 or fall off the end of were combined into a hybrid of
The a level. Subse- sorts. Crazy barrels were unpre-
American version differed in screen quently, falling off the level on the dictable, as were the paths the
order. Level one was the barrels barrels screen in regular barrels
and rivet screen. Level two con- the Colecovision would take. The
sisted of the barrels, elevator, and version would spring-back
rivet screen. Level three consisted not result in jump was cor-
of the barrels, conveyor belt, eleva- death either. rectly imple-
tors, and rivets. From then on, Instead, it would mented as well.
many other combinations of cause Mario to Also from
screens followed. For this reason, drop the ham- Atari came the
many people didn’t even know that mer and con- Commodore
the conveyor belt level existed. tinue on. In the Vic20 and C-64
Between turns, level progress was VCS version, the versions. As
displayed in meters, shown by the player didn’t one would ex-
number of Donkey Kongs stacked. even have the pect, the Vic20
The Max was 6 high (150m). satisfaction of version looked
As mentioned earlier, many walking off or awful. The
home versions spawned from the even reaching crazy thing was,
original. In fact, Donkey Kong was the top of the screen before con- NES somebody took the time to cram
Colecovision’s flagship packaged tinuing to the next level. all of the intermissions, boards
game, practically selling the sys- The rivets screen wasn’t much (conveyor belt too!), animations,
tem. However, it was a very rough prettier either. It consisted of 5 lev- (lose turn spin), fireballs, crazy bar-
version. The top level was elimi- els that extended across the entire rels, etc. into the 5k available in the
nated, placing screen. The fire- Vic! Maybe Coleco should have
Donkey Kong on foxes looked even taken some tips from the Atarisoft
the opposite side more like poor programmer when they pro-
of the barrels renditions of
screen, and the ducks. They
fireballs and “crazy were not able to
barrels” were elimi- travel up and
nated. The eleva- down the lad-
tor screen was ders; thus, once
missing the springs the hammer was
(or affectionately used on the fire-
called “springers”). ball of that level,
Instead, they were the player had to
replaced by non- patiently wait for
menacing, duck- it to disappear.
like firefox wanna- Once a rivet was
bees! The rivet screen was removed, the player would
Atari VCS/2600
intact, except for one level. Unfor- lose a turn for falling in the hole. Intellivision
tunately, the cute animations, such However, Mario wouldn’t fall. He grammed their 16-24k version of
as the dying sequences and inter- would just simply freeze as if he Donkey Kong.
missions were missing. were hit by an object and then The Commodore 64 version
One may ask, “If the Colecovi- “death” music would play. looked pretty good, however the

Classic Gamer Magazine Fall 1999 21