Congo Bongo (1983)

Congo Bongo is an entertaining video game of platforms published by SEGA in 1983, originally for recreational machines, with a development on the part of Ikegami Tsushinki. The target of the throwing of the game was to face to the tremendous popularity of Donkey Kong of Nintendo, therefore the game system is very similar but from an isometric perspective and with a notable technical progress. Nevertheless, at level of recreational the video game was a commercial defeat but one gave him a new opportunity in the domestic devices where if it obtained a good reception: ColecoVision, Atari 5200, IntelliVision, Atari 2600, TI-99/4A, Commodore 64 and PC.

We take the role of a nice explorer who takes as a target to capture a giant simian known as Bongo, to take revenge, since the above mentioned simian has set fire to us to the shop. Obviously, the giant monkey goes to allow not to hunt easily and he will not hesitate to ask for help to all the animals of the forest, as well as attack straight our protagonist.

The video game consists of four levels (Primate Peek, Snake Lake, Rhino Ridge and Lazy Lagoon) that are recuring in a ringlet increasing his difficulty. Since we have commented, the game was trying to dispute the undeniable mastery of Donkey Kong, therefore we meet many similarities. In fact, basically we will meet the big simian throwing ourselves objects to the purest style of the gorilla of Nintendo. Nevertheless, this the biggest capture does not happen in all the levels and in the game importance the different pitfalls and enemies who are appearing in the way.

In the graphic paragraph he emphasizes his extraordinary coloring and the care in the design of the levels. The isometric perspective is inherited from Zaxxon since, in fact, both video games use the same hardware. In this sense, it is necessary to emphasize the good answer of the control panel before a perspective that still had not been much exploited. The sound-track limits itself to a short melody between level and level, being more out-standing the sound, quite varied effects and with different sounds that try ambientar the stage of the jungle.

In this video you can see how the game is: