Mario and a gorilla named Kong and a princess let the fun begin. Did I mention Mario is a plumber?
Gameplay: Just like in the arcade you get three Marios and you must race from the bottom of the screen to the top to rescue the Princess. Obstacles in your way include regular rolling barrels, rolling barrels on fire, in a later levels you will face off against fire creatures who want to burn you.
The game is broken up into two different levels. The first is a level that has girders and ladders. Not all the ladders are complete so you must learn the timing of the barrels if you want to make it to the top.
On the second level you walk across what are suppose to be rivets. This will eventually cause the stack of girders Donkey Kong is standing on to fall and you will have won back the Princess. But not for very long as you will be sent back to first level to start all over and face off against barrels and fire creatures coming at you even faster.
At your disposal is one hammer per level. This allows you to destroy some of the monsters and make your ascent towards Donkey Kong and the Princess easier. You can score extra points using the hammer. You also score points by jumping over the barrels and the fire creatures.
Graphics: This was a very bland game so to speak even in the arcade. So the port over to the Atari very little was lost in translation. Graphics for this game was just above average.
Sound: Standard Atari sounds. Bleeps and bloops. You could play this game with no sound and it would not effect your gameplay.
Value: Donkey Kong in the arcade was popular so owning this on your Atari was a plus. It gave you something you could practice and later on go to the arcade and dominate the game the whole time you were at the arcade.
Tilt: Donkey Kong was a shot in the dark. Just something to see how arcade players would react to a game of this nature. Since the release of this game many more versions of Mario has spanned over the NES and SNES and the Game Cube. This game much like Pacman was simple and straight forward and could hold your attention as you tried to see how fast you could play the game. Overall it is a nice game to have in your collection if you want some nostalgia from the past.