Simple concept, submit reviews of games. Its like the album review section, but just one thread.
And theres no rule that says you cant review a game that has already been reviewed.
I'll start with an old arcade classic.
Donkey Kong
Developer: Nintendo
Platform: Arcade
Yeah: 1981
Rating: 8
In many ways Mario could be compared to Charlie Chaplin, these two mustached heroes aside from being pop culture icons perfectly defined their respective art forms before anyone else.
Indeed games like Donkey Kong and Pac Man can be considered the video game worlds equivalent to old silent films with their dated visuals and incredibly simplistic storylines. Just like silent films these games have great historical relevance. But more importantly they are still fun even if we prefer our games nowadays with a little more something extra.
So heres a little history about the game. The idea for this game was stemmed from an earlier game, Radar Scope, which was a huge flop for Nintendo, so they decided to use the unsold arcade machines and redesign them for a new game, which ended up being Donkey Kong. This was also the first Nintendo game to be designed and supervised by Shigeru Miyamoto (if you don't know who that is, you suck), and whats most remarkable about this game is that he had little to no experience as game designer when he was working on Donkey Kong.
But enough of that, on with the actual review.
This is one of the most innovative games of its time, it pretty much revolutionized the platformer genre. This is of course, the game that introduced the beloved italian plumber to the world, though in this game he is a carpenter. The story of this game sounds like something from an old Popeye cartoon. Mario (then known only as Jumpman) is of coruse the hero, who must save his gal Pauline (who must have been either a bitch or a slut because he quickly dumped her for Princess Peach in SMB) from Donkey Kong, a pissed off gorilla with a liking for construction sites, which is where the game takes place.
The game has only 4 levels, which are one screen stages (side scrolling didn't become popular until a few years later, especially with the release of Super Mario Bros) each with a challenging theme. In each level your goal is the same, which is to make it to Pauline and rescue her, only for Donkey Kong to kidnap her again, leaving Mario with literally a broken heart.
On the first level Mario must make his way up a crooked maze of girders and ladders where Donkey Kong (doing what he does best) rolls barrels that can be either avoided by jumping over them or using one of the hammers Mario can pick up, fireballs are also a nuisance on thist level as well as the ones that follow. The second level has Mario making his way through a series of conveyor belts. On level three he has to make his way through elevators while donkey kong throws spring weights on a linear path. On the final level its up to Mario to take out the damn dirty ape for good by removing the 8 rivets on the steel structure, which are guarded by massive fireballs.
Even when considering how dated this game is, I wouldn't change anything. Just like Pac Man it's brilliant in its simplicity, everything from the cute little mario graphic to the level design to the iconic sound effects. If theres one thing wrong with this game is that its too short even by arcade game standards. With the right amount of experience you could beat this game in less than 3 minutes. But for those who haven't played this game over a million times (a rare breed) this game is rather hard (jumps are easy to screw up, timing is a factor), making victory all the more sweet once you finally take that ape down and get your woman back.
Too bad theres no sex scene at the end though.
^ Yeah, this review is pretty damn horrible and uninformative (everything I have said is **** you already know) but I just needed to do a quick review to have as an example. I had intended to do a video game review thread months ago and figured now was a good time.
My other reviews will be better, because for one thing I will actually be fully awake.