Donkey Kong (1981, Intellivision)

Format: Intellivision
Developer: Nintendo Research & Development 1 (port developed by Coleco)
Publisher: Nintendo (port published by Coleco)
Release Date: July 9, 1981 (port released March 3, 1982)
Playtime: 6 minutes (played through both levels and then played until I ran out of lives on difficulty 1)

EDIT (1/24/2017): I originally decided to go through and review all of the ports for this game. However, in hindsight I feel like this is kind of pointless reviewing about a dozen versions of the same game. I have gone back and edited the original arcade review to add information on each of the ports which thus makes this review kind of pointless. I am keeping it up just for the sake of it but please keep that in mind.

Donkey Kong is a great arcade game. Naturally, I thought I would explore some of its ports that have been released over the years. From what I can tell, the first was released for the Intellivision back in 1982. This is honestly one of the worst video game ports I have seen. The graphics hardly resemble the original at all. Donkey Kong has been turned into a big green blob with two eye holes. Mario doesn't even look like Mario at all but rather a man in blue overalls.

This version only features two of the original arcade versions four levels. Here we have the first level with the barrels that come down, and the fourth level where you must go over all of the rivets. The pie factory and platform jumping levels have been removed from this version. The controls feel sluggish and jumping has a significant delay. When you do jump it is almost entirely vertical which makes it difficult to jump over barrels or do anything useful.

Clearly Coleco put all of their effort into their version for the Colecovision. Even though Donkey Kong is an excellent game, stay far away from this port. It is a horrible representation of the original and supposedly this cartridge doesn't even work on the Intellivision II. Other than tracking down the original cartridge, there is no way to get a hold of this version. But don't bother.