Donkey Kong was a very popular arcade game when it was released, and it's understandable exactly why it was popular - it was a great game. But, many have said that the Atari 2600 version of Donkey Kong was unplayable. Let's see if that's true...

As for the graphics, for Atari 2600, it isn't bad. Though Donkey Kong looks more like a gigantic gingerbread man, and the barrels look more like pizzas or cookies, they do their job. There's also absolutely no flicker whatsoever, at least not that I can see.

The sound isn't bad either. The basic sound effects are there, though some are missing, and they sound pretty good on the Atari...

The gameplay is what gets so much hate from most people. This hate is, well, mainly because half of the levels are missing. The pie factory level is missing(no big surprise there), as well as the elevator level. This means that there's only two of the four original levels, and those are the least difficult of the four...

The controls and play mechanics are also a target of people who hate this port. The jumping is mostly just Mario's sprite changing a little bit, to simulate his jumping, for one thing. One thing these people never seem to touch upon is the fact that each level doesn't start until you press the fire button and jump. In other words, this is an Atari 2600 game with a pause function! It's pretty convenient, to say the least.

All of the levels have been noticeably shrunk, the most obvious one being the barrel board. Also, there's only one hammer in each board, and in the second board, it's placed so as to be almost totally useless.

The collision detection seems just slightly off, at least for me, as one time, I clearly jumped over a barrel, yet it still hit me. Odd...

The difficulty is somewhat odd, as it's quite different from most Atari games, and it's also different from the arcade version. While the difficulty is technically enough to be a challenge, the difficulty doesn't increase in any way, and you can't select any different game mode to make it harder or easier. Seems like this port was a little rushed to me...

Of course, the story can't be given a rating. It's pretty close to what you see in other Mario games - rescue a damsel in distress. In this case, you have to rescue a damsel in distress from Donkey Kong, a gigantic gorilla. I really don't want to know why Donkey Kong captured her in the first place...

If I'm correct, this version, though I may be getting mixed up with the Intellivision version, was developed by Coleco and was deliberately made poorly so that it would make their Colecovision version look that much better. Ah, you'd never see this in today's gaming market...

Overall, this game's not bad, though it isn't outstanding either. The graphics are sufficient, the sound is pretty close, and the design has its quirks...

=Sufficient graphics
+No flicker
+Sound effects are close to the original
-Only two levels?
-Lazily programmed jump mechanics
+A primitive pause function!
-Difficulty stays the same no matter what you do

Overall Score - C+(Not bad, but not good either)

Great Review.

Lol, I didn't knew the story behind the game's programming... Yeah, we'll never see something like that again today.

However, At least this game has it's good things...

Once again, great review.

Good review dude. A couple things that I have to say about the game is that the game make me rage a lot, but fun to play at the same time too.

Excellent review.  This one game change the gaming industry forever.  Thanks to this one great legend, Gaming is the multibillion dollar industry it is today.