Games - Donkey Kong

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	Games - Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong (Japanese: ドンキーコング) is a gorilla character from Nintendo that appeared in many video games since 1981. Like many Nintendo franchises, Donkey Kong was created by Shigeru Miyamoto. History
Donkey Kong was created when Shigeru Miyamoto was assigned by Nintendo
to convert Radar Scope, a poor selling arcade game in the U.S., into a game that would appeal more to Americans. The result was a major breakthrough for Nintendo and for the videogame industry. Sales of the machine were brisk, with the game becoming one of the best-selling arcade machines of the early 1980s. The gameplay itself was a large improvement over other games of its time, and with the growing base of arcades to sell to, it was able to gain huge distribution.

However, in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., MCA Universal sued Nintendo over copyright violations, claiming that Donkey Kong was a copy of King Kong. If victorious, this lawsuit would have crushed Nintendo of America, and the history of videogames would have been drastically altered. Nintendo's lawyer, Howard Lincoln
, who would go on to become a Senior Vice President of the company, discovered that Universal didn't own the copyright to King Kong either, and was able to not only win the lawsuit, but got Universal to pay the legal costs. Ironically, it was MCA Universal that previously won a lawsuit declaring King Kong was in the public domain. This incident was selected as #20 "" in GameSpy
's '.

Due to the huge success of Donkey Kong, Nintendo of America was able to grow and release many more games in succeeding years, and had the resources necessary to release the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States.

Overview

The name was chosen by game designer Shigeru Miyamoto as a combination of the word "Kong", since the movie King Kong had caused it 'to colloquially mean monkey' in Japan. According to Snopes, Donkey was chosen because Miyamoto intended it "to convey a sense of stubbornness." Various urban legends have circulated, saying that the actual name was to be "Monkey Kong" but was changed by accident for the American release. Snopes debunked these myths in "."

In the original Donkey Kong game, the player's character, Mario (originally called Jumpman in Japan), must jump over barrels thrown by Donkey Kong while climbing ladders up a crooked construction site to reach the top of the screen to rescue his girlfriend Pauline (who was originally called Lady in Japan). Each screen is a game stage, with stages grouping to form levels. As the player advances through each level, the degree of difficulty increases proportionately.

This game was first released in the arcades, but was ported to home video game consoles and home computers. The game was also sold as a Game & Watch unit in 1982.

The game was quite revolutionary for its time, featuring multiple, distinct levels, large colorful graphics, and a unique form of play control.

Sequels and remakes

Donkey Kong spawned two sequels, neither of which were as popular as the original arcade hit. In Donkey Kong Junior Donkey Kong was kidnapped by Mario and players had to control his son Donkey Kong Jr. to rescue him. In Donkey Kong 3 DK broke into a greenhouse and got chased out by Stanley the Bugman, who carried a spray can to protect his greenhouse from Donkey Kong's insects.

Throughout the 1980s, eight Donkey Kong games were released for the Game & Watch platform.

In 1994, Nintendo produced a remake of the original game for the Game Boy (called "Game Boy Donkey Kong" in-game, also known under the informal title of "Donkey Kong '94" to disambiguate it from the original) which contained 97 new stages (most of which were puzzle-oriented) in addition to the original four from the Arcade game. Donkey Kong's and Pauline's respective character designs were updated for this game (DK now wore a tie and Pauline was made into a brunette to distinguish her from Peach).

Successors

16-bit era (SNES)

Shortly after that, he appeared in Donkey Kong Country (in Japan, Super Donkey Kong). Donkey Kong Country was an entirely new DK franchise established by the British company Rareware which took the Donkey Kong premise in an entirely new direction. Severing DK's ties to the Mario world (until Mario Kart 64), Donkey Kong Country established a whole new world for DK, and became a showcase title to show off then-revolutionary 3D CGI graphics.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Donkey Kong ]

Games - Donkey Kong

History

Overview

Sequels and remakes

Successors

16-bit era (SNES)

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