Reviews

An unlicensed conversion of the arcade game Donkey Kong, this was one of Ocean's first hits. It's far from a perfect copy of the original, but still managed to stand out enough from a bunch of inferior clones to be the choice of its time.

Although fairly fast, and being one of the few games of its time to feature smooth-moving sprites rather than have everything in exact character squares, it's got a few bugs and irritating quirks. Jumps seem to be at totally the wrong speed in comparison to normal movement, the collision detection is a bit ropey, and getting onto the ladders has a bit of a knack to it.

Whilst it was pretty good fun for its time, it hasn't really stood the test of time at all. The graphics no longer impress and the gameplay is finicky, bordering on unfair.

1983 Ocean Software (UK)
by Paul Owens

I'm not familiar with all versions of Kong in the spectrum but this is one of the most irritanting that I know of.
Getting on the ladders was a real drama.
The game plays fast and furious and once you master all climbing and jumping, it is in fact fun to play, irritating but fun!

Of all the unofficial arcade conversions made by Ocean in the first phase of its existence, this is by far the worst.

Kong obviously takes 'inspiration' from Donkey Kong, but the primitive graphics - Mario has turned into a sort of matchstick man! - and the shoddy gameplay, with some very bad collision detection, mean any similarities end on a very superficial level.

Ocean would have produced a proper official conversion of Donkey Kong in 1986, but it would have been too late by then.

Scrambling to get down to the local game shop (wildings) we joined our funds together and browsed the shelves - two games hit us - manic miner by bug byte and kong by ocean. We'd already played manic miner on a mates speccy and knew how good it was , so we plumped for the game we'd known from the arcades - DONKEY KONG !

Taking forever to load , with the basic ocean loading screen not helping to pass anytime , we eagerly awaited to play the amazing arcade game at home.

Hmmm - the main sprites a bit flickery , he doesn't look quite right , oh well , on we pressed. The levels were still very similar , but the barrels seem enormous compared to your poor man and the collision detection seemed very harsh , to the point of frustration.

Again and again we tried and eventually clearing the first screen things got slightly better , we didn't give up though as £6.90 back in 1983 was a small fortune and kept us from pulling the plug.

We had a full day on it and then we turned and admitted to each other that it was a poor effort , driving us crazy with frustration.

As an early arcade conversion of a great arcade game , ocean ultimately failed , they would try again 3 years later with an official version - which did do a far better job.

Three years before Ocean's official DK game there was this unofficial clone, and let's just say it's not pretty. Thankfully the official game is much better than this.