| DONKEY
KONG CLASSICS |
  Ah yes, Donkey Kong - the Arcade hit that put Nintendo on the map as a game developer in the USA, when in 1979, Nintendo failed to sail enough "Radar Scope" units and needed a new game. Somewhere along the lines, long story short, they found an Employee named Shigery Miyamoto with some design talent and brought him on. He came up with the concept of a man saving his girlfriend at a construction site from a giant ape - something similar to Godzilla - but with a more comedic angle. The original game was released in 1981 as an arcade game, and was a smash hit, spawning a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr., in 1982 that turns the tables,s now having Donkey Kong's son Donkey Kong Jr. rescuing him from the now finalized antagonist - Mario - now in a circus profession.
Both of these games were originally released as single releases in Japan for the Famicom, and possibly for the NES as the famous "black label" original releases from 1985. In 1988, Nintendo decided to put both the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. on a multicart known as "Donkey Kong Classics" - this one. And it was one of those NES games that I call the rental/drugstore fodder releases. Basically, those lesser known titles like Ghost Lion, Time Lord, or Ultima: Exodus you could find at your local drug store or video rental place. I remember first seeing this one sometime aroun 1992 at Blockbuster Video and wanting ot rent it - but wanting to rent Super Mario Bros. 3 more. Therefore, it's not a commonly mentioned release. Donkey Kong would go on to have some Game Boy releases before being somewhat "rebooted" by RARE in 1996 with the famous Donkey Kong Country series for the SNES.My Crazy Classmates - Donkey Kong Edition I first saw this cart for rent at Blockbuster in 1992, and having played the Atari 2600 port as a kid, I wondered if the NES would get closer to the Arcade version - which I had played at our local Guitar Shoppe (because the owner, Mark, I think got into arcade games for a time, and put a Donkey Kong machine in the store). I got this copy from a classmate named Antonio. Hilarious kid, a bit of a bully at times, but hilarious as heck. Atthe time I was too much of a goody goody to appreciate how he antagonized our teachers like a amped up version of tne 80's class clown, LOL. Anyway, around 8th grade he and others knew I was getting hardcore into collecting video games so he gave me this copy which I cleaned the name of whoever owned it before him from (Isopropyl Alcohol is a real useful tool). Anyway, this is one of my longer owned cartridges. I still kick it out every once and awhile and it's actually my preferred "home port" of Donkey Kong (probably explains why Im so good at the Arcade Version - the morning I was at Santa Cruz boardwalk mucking about the video arcade, I was the first High Score of the day on Donkey Kong). In high school I played this for hours upon hours between practicing guitar and recording sessions, usually along side Metroid, after I'd spent about half the school year putting Dragon Warrior IV through it's paces. |
