Donkey Kong

In 1989 my family entered the technological age when a family friend updated their Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K to an Amiga 500 and Speccy was passed down to us. It was a moment of intense excitement for the Atheralls - the box full of cassette games bearing mysterious and enticing titles such as Jetpac, Fantasy World Dizzy, Kenny Dalglish's Football Manager and Donkey Kong would occupy hours of our childhood from that moment on.

  Gaming in this low-tech era demanded more patience than today's instant 'insert and play' culture. Before you grasped the joystick like your life depended upon it, you had to wait for the screechy loading process. The tapes emitted a sound not dissimilar to my sisters' ear-chastising violin playing and whilst most of the time this high-pitched squealing was normally concluded with the opportunity to play a game, this wasn't always the case with games often stuttering and stumbling to a crash just as your anticipation had reached a point of heart-thumping desperation to shoot an alien; collect a meaningless coin; purchase an exciting young striker or vault a rolling barrel. The excruciation you feel as a child having to wait for something you desperately want is like little I have experienced in my adult life. Perhaps I learnt some patience through this procedure that modern gamers know nothing of, although I'm not so sure.

  Donkey Kong was not the most regular cassette to play me a discordant tune, but it was a game that featured in my childhood. The first stage, which I never made it past, put you in the position of Mario and your task was to climb various ladders whilst avoiding barrels thrown at you by a monkey called Donkey Kong. Once you reached the top, you freed Mario's girlfriend Pauline from her apish enslaver and proceeded to complete a similar task. There's a theory that Donkey Kong was originally meant to be called Monkey Kong and that a mistake in translation from Japanese to English led to the odd choice of name. Creator Shigiru Miyamoto denies this however, saying that the name was chosen to reflect the big ape's stubborn nature. That isn't the only controversy surrounding the name-choice: Universal Studios felt that Donkey Kong's name infringed on the King Kong copyright, but they failed in suing Nintendo and ended up having to pay $1.8 million in damages.

  Donkey Kong and Mario have gone on to huge fame since their introduction to the gaming world in 1981 and have become figureheads for Nintendo. My Spectrum though has been stolen by my brother who gets it out now and then when he is feeling nostalgic. If you to experience the unbridled joy of early Donkey Kong, you can do so by visiting: http://www.classicgamesarcade.com/game/21595/Donkey-Kong-Classic-Game.html