Best DK ever, on good ol' NES

I got Donkey Kong Pie Factory in the mail yesterday for NES. All I have to say is, "Wow!"

I now have as true to arcade a home version as I will see in my lifetime. Granted, I have D2K for Intellivision, and upcoming versions for 7800 and Colecovision look promising, but the graphics on this game are as close to arcade as it gets, short of a Nintendo arcade compilation, which I doubt we'll see anytime soon.

Gameplay is excellent, and the previously missing pie/cement factory level is well done without being overly difficult. I think I will be spending more time with my beloved NES.

Cool. I looked up a video to see what it was like. I'm posting it here. I still think the 7800 version will beat this one given all the added animations that are missing even on this port for the NES.

I forgot about the 'How high can you get?' screens. If 7800 and CV versions have those, along with the ladder climbing intro screen, then I will have to take this claim back.

Biggest drawback to me, as far as 7800 and CV versions go, is having to spend for the expansion modules for each system before even buying the games themselves.

I don't know about the CV version but the 7800 XM version does. Here is a video:



Note that this isn't the final version yet!

That is good news. Thanks for sharing sloan! I have heard about the new Colecovision expansion unit.

Great time to be a Donkey Kong fan no matter what system you play!

Reading this thread tonight makes me wonder.

It looks like Curt Vendel has taken people's money a year ago, promised completion of XM by April of this year, and also has not delivered other goods to other forum members who payed more than 6 months ago. His credibility and ability to keep to his promises is being called into question.

At this point, I just wish they would port DKXM and Bentley Bear to regular 7800 and release them soon in cartridge form.

sloan wrote:Reading this thread
At this point, I just wish they would port DKXM and Bentley Bear to regular 7800 and release them soon in cartridge form.

To accomplish this it would require finding and sacrificing carts of rare games in carts that have both extra RAM and POKEY chips (Commando is an example) and it will make releasing DKXM and BB almost as expensive as the XM itself. Neither of these games fit into standard carts.

Why sacrifice rare carts when guys like CPUwiz and INTVnut are making new PCB's for VCS and intellivision? How hard would it be for someone to start producing new 7800 cartridge PCB's with Pokey chip and additional RAM? RAM is dirt cheap these days, after all.

sloan wrote:Why sacrifice rare carts when guys like CPUwiz and INTVnut are making new PCB's for VCS and intellivision? How hard would it be for someone to start producing new 7800 cartridge PCB's with Pokey chip and additional RAM? RAM is dirt cheap these days, after all.

No one is making these carts for the 7800. I don't know the technical aspect of it. All I know is that they are not being made. Even if someone chooses to sacrifice Commando carts, they have to be modified to serve the purpose.

I really hope the expansion can see daylight. The 7800 seems to have a lot of life left even without the expansion.

I look at the Intellivision and the games coming out are really amazing without any add-ons.

I should have added that the last sales report for modern consoles has me curious what is going to happen. I mean sales of consoles down 25%. Will enough people in the future show interest in these old consoles to justify making new carts?

onthinice wrote:I really hope the expansion can see daylight. The 7800 seems to have a lot of life left even without the expansion.

I look at the Intellivision and the games coming out are really amazing without any add-ons.

It will. It always seems to be the same group of whiners over on AA when it comes to the XM. There is a site set up that has updates about what is happening. People just want to complain about it and forget this is a hobby being done by people during their spare time.

onthinice wrote:I should have added that the last sales report for modern consoles has me curious what is going to happen. I mean sales of consoles down 25%. Will enough people in the future show interest in these old consoles to justify making new carts.

It'll probably be the 80's all over again.

TrekMD wrote:

onthinice wrote:I really hope the expansion can see daylight. The 7800 seems to have a lot of life left even without the expansion.

I look at the Intellivision and the games coming out are really amazing without any add-ons.

It will. It always seems to be the same group of whiners over on AA when it comes to the XM. There is a site set up that has updates about what is happening. People just want to complain about it and forget this is a hobby being done by people during their spare time.

I don't know. Two said they ordered controllers from Vendel and never received them. Wow!

Also, most of these 'whiners' laid down cash 2-3 years ago, and Curt isn't communicating at all these days. Really, I am surprised there isn't a class action legal claim filed yet, if what these are saying is true.

sloan wrote:

TrekMD wrote:

onthinice wrote:I really hope the expansion can see daylight. The 7800 seems to have a lot of life left even without the expansion.

I look at the Intellivision and the games coming out are really amazing without any add-ons.

It will. It always seems to be the same group of whiners over on AA when it comes to the XM. There is a site set up that has updates about what is happening. People just want to complain about it and forget this is a hobby being done by people during their spare time.

I don't know. Two said they ordered controllers from Vendel and never received them. Wow!

Also, most of these 'whiners' laid down cash 2-3 years ago, and Curt isn't communicating at all these days. Really, I am surprised there isn't a class action legal claim filed yet, if what these are saying is true.

When it is the same people repeating the same thing over and over again, they are whining and looking for attention. Other threads for the XM have had to get closed because even people who have no investment on the XM suddenly start attacking the project or the developers for it. Curt has set a web page where updates are posted. Could they be more frequent? Sure (though they are posted once or twice a month). People can go there and see where progress is but many of these people choose not to do that. Interesting that once Groovy posted something to address the skeptics, these people stopped posting on the thread. It's a cycle and I'm sure it will start again in a week or so.

Curt has already indicated that for those who don't want to wait any more, a refund can be given. So, people should either get the refund and shut up or wait and quit their whining. I'm sorry but it does get old and if there is an alternative that gets you out of it, just take it and move on.

I guess I just don't see it, especially when these have been waiting that long, and he did promise it for April of this year.

Also, I did notice that the naysayers stopped after Groovybee, but that is only because Al came along and 'liked' his posts. It is obvious and well known over at AA that you can get banned for disagreeing with Al and his cult. Just saying.

All Curt would have had to do was offer a single post in the midst of all that 'whining' to put people at ease, and he didn't even make the effort.

sloan wrote:I guess I just don't see it, especially when these have been waiting that long, and he did promise it for April of this year.

Also, I did notice that the naysayers stopped after Groovybee, but that is only because Al came along and 'liked' his posts. It is obvious and well known over at AA that you can get banned for disagreeing with Al and his cult. Just saying.

All Curt would have had to do was offer a single post in the midst of all that 'whining' to put people at ease, and he didn't even make the effort.

The fact remains that there is an "out" for these people. They can get their money back.

Yes, we were all waiting for it to be released in April but there were complications that were well explained that led to the delay. Since then, additional people have been helping Curt to get it finished. It has been demoed at shows. New games that are planned for the XM have also been demoed.

I guess it is much easier to constantly complain than to send an email asking for a refund. These people just want to play "victim" rather than take a step that would put them entirely at ease.

BTW, about Curt not posting...we don't even know if he can right now. For all we know he has no power and/or no internet. He lives in one of the many areas affected by Sandy and, more recently, the snow storm.

Curt finally posted today. He had not been able to thanks to Sandy and the Northeaster. We should expect an update on the web site he's set up for official updates next week.

I hope he and his family are doing fine after the storm.

I was reading this thread, and it appears that Bentley Bear will not be finished for 7800 XM after all. So sad, and best wishes to Bob DeCrescenzo.

That's unfortunate for the community but if he feels it is time to move on, I can only wish him the best. Bentley Bear was nearly finished, so hopefully another one of the guys making games will be able to take the code and finish the game. Only the sound was missing as all levels were completed by Bob.

I have to wonder why Nintendo didn't bother with the "Pie Factory" level originally, even on Donkey Kong Classics. For that matter, I was surprised to discover there was a cutscene in the arcade version of Donkey Kong Junior many years later.

I'm not sure why. There is a hack of it that adds the Pie Factory, though. Clearly the system could handle it, so who knows what they were thinking.

TrekMD wrote:I'm not sure why.  There is a hack of it that adds the Pie Factory, though.  Clearly the system could handle it, so who knows what they were thinking.

I'm guessing that Donkey Kong was still doing so well that Nintendo wanted the console version slightly crippled, so people would still want to play the arcade version. Perhaps Donkey Kong Junior wasn't quite as popular.

I suppose that's as good a reason as any.

Now that I think of it, I do have Donkey Kong with the Pie Factory level on my 3DS. It was a digital reward from Club Nintendo. I think I bought the download version of CrossworDS Plus to get it.