The History of Congo Bongo - arcade console documentary

[Applause] [Music] happy little games throughout history there have been many video games that involve those damn dirty apes if you loved video games and have a hankering for some mad crazy monkey love then i'm sure you've played rampage super monkey ball [Music] primal rage and of course king kong for the atari 2600 today we are taking a look at another classic arcade game that features a giant crazy primate who is absolutely bananas no i'm not talking about amador i'm talking about the isometric sega arcade game by the name of congo bongo what other legendary ape-themed game does this game share a connection with this is the history of congo bongo upon first glance people may think congo bongo was just a cheap imitation of donkey kong and you might be half right in the early 1980s japanese developer ikagami tsushiki were busy creating games with nintendo ekagami got its start as an electronics company having developed the first portable handheld tv camera in 1962. in the late 1970s and early 80s they had developed games such as hellfire and radar scope for nintendo which did not set the world on fire nintendo had over ordered parts for radar scope and were in a panic to develop something new for the existing boards according to the fantastic book sora pong kara hajimata ikagami had previously signed a contract with nintendo for the programming and manufacturing of arcade games donkey kong included during its development shigeru miyamoto would produce various ideas and characters that ikagami would then program into the game the contract gave ikagami exclusive rights for manufacturing donkey kong arcade boards nintendo did not fulfill this agreement and then made their own which is when the lawsuit began nintendo hired another contractor called iwasaki engineering to disassemble and reverse engineer donkey kong so that nintendo could add new graphics stages and mechanics for a sequel in 1983 ikagami filed a 580 million yen copyright infringement suit or about 8.7 million dollars adjusted for exchange rates and inflation over both donkey kong and its sequel nintendo responded with a countersuit alleging that ikagami had no rights to the code since ownership was transferred to nintendo when they paid fifty thousand dollars for the product's development the suit lasted until 1990 when they finally settled out of court but unfortunately the documents are sealed this brings us to 1983 and the development of congo bongo thanks to the lawsuit debacle ikagami cut all ties with nintendo and started working with other video game companies namely sega they had created the masterpiece zaxxon which was a huge success for the company ikagami wanted to stick it to nintendo just a little bit and crafted their next arcade game with definite donkey kong inspirations it involves a short red-nosed alcoholic who was trying to get his revenge on a giant rampaging ape by the name of bongo the game would use the same isometric perspective from zaxon making for some elaborate colorful levels congo bongo was released by sega in 1983. as the story goes bongo is quite the prankster and also a bit of an arsonist while our faithful explorer is sleeping peacefully bongo decides to set his tent on fire sending the explorer into a rage it's up to you to traverse the different levels avoiding all manner of jungle wildlife in the process in order to get your revenge on bongo the controls are fairly simple with a lone fire button used for jumping the game has definite similarities with donkey kong but also some frogger thrown in for good measure the game takes place across four levels which have to be completed in order of succession to finally get your revenge your character has to climb cliffs jump over water and avoid the coconuts that bongo is raining down upon you the goal is to get past these obstacles and up to the platform where bongo is if you manage to reach him he will slink away like the coward that he is then is on to the next level there are a number of jungle enemies to avoid such as stinging scorpions slithering snakes rampaging rhinos and mad mad monkeys the monkeys come in two flavors with the brown monkeys jumping on your back you can shake them off if you are quick enough but if three of them jump on you with ill intent they will toss you over the ledge and you will die if this happens an animation of you with a halo and wings floating to heaven is shown the green monkeys will grab your ankles while you are climbing up a ledge and pull you back down the similarities to donkey kong are very apparent from the overall concept to little things such as the bonus box and level indicator also buried in the arcade's graphic tile set is the logo for the ikagami corporation donkey kong had this in his tile set as well at the time designers did not usually get credit for their work so this was one way of making sure they were recognized the four crazy levels that you have to tackle are primate peak which clearly shows its donkey kong inspiration [Laughter] snake lake in which you have to avoid the scorpions and snakes [Music] rhino ridge in which you have to avoid the charging rhinos but be careful because they can track your position and the last level is the lazy lagoon in which you have to jump across lily pads and hippos all the while avoiding piranhas and rhinos [Music] if you are able to complete the lazy lagoon you make your way up to bongo who was fast asleep apparently being a pyromaniac is pretty tiring but he won't be asleep for long you take your torch and set poor bongo on fire while a cheery musical tune plays in the background after this the game repeats only at a higher difficulty [Music] [Music] when the game was unveiled at the 1983 aoe show in chicago there was a lot of hype for the game and it received significant orders for some reason though it wasn't as big of a hit as the company thought it would be it eventually did find his footing in the arcade but it took a while to do so and turned out to be a modest success for the company almost immediately after the release of this game development started on a sequel entitled the revenge of congo bongo this game would see the explorer chasing bongo throughout a valley filled with dinosaurs among other things thanks to the video game crash in north america the game was cancelled the game wasn't unlockable in the sega genesis collection for the psp and sonic's ultimate genesis collection for the xbox 360 and playstation 3. an enhanced remake was released for the playstation 2 under the sega ages line which was sega ages 2500 volume 23 sega memorial selection this is a japanese-only compilation of five games from sega's library including borderline doki doki penguin land head on tranquilizer gun and of course congo bongo these include the original emulated arcade titles as well as new updated versions of the games with enhanced graphics improved music and sound effects [Music] [Music] [Music] say a funny thing happened when i started to play congo bongo hey these nuts are crazy who are these guys hey fellas let's not get carried away oh no maybe i'll go for a swim on second thought maybe i'll go for a walk hey lady this is a one-way street hey that's the guy i've been looking for congo bongo buy it now and save five dollars on star trek or buck rogers now that should put a smile on your face the game was converted to a number of systems with varying degrees of success meaning not much success at all the atari 2600 version is the one i had growing up and i enjoyed it a lot back in the day for starters like most other versions of the game only two levels are included the graphics looked decent enough especially for a home conversion at the time even though he's only a single color bongo was easily recognizable and so were those filthy little monkeys running around for the second level they completely abandoned the pseudo 3d perspective and went with an overhead view making it look even more like a frogger clone at least there are some nice water effects the controls are fine although the speed is off by just a bit by the way all you lovely little fire starters can rejoice because the ending has been included where pongo was set on fire [Music] let's switch over to the commodore line and look at the atrocity that is the vic-20 version in my opinion a game could look like a turd but if it plays like a silky smooth violin then i'd be all in however if the game looks like a turd and plays like a turd then count me out the graphics are large and chunky with horrible colors the sound effects are some of the queefiest ever heard on the vic the controls are extremely stiff making the jumps tough to pull off there are also only two levels included would i recommend this game absolutely not [Music] the atari 5200 version is up next and it does a pretty good job at replicating the backgrounds from the arcade the animation though especially the coconuts are a bit choppy and it's almost impossible to predict where they are going to go the sound effects are merely adequate but it does control fairly well there are only two levels in this version from what i can see the atari 8-bit computer conversions are pretty much identical to this one now a few are adamant that congo bongo did not rip off donkey kong then whatever you do don't play the sg-1000 version due to the limitations of the hardware the 3d perspective was ditched in favor of a side view perspective which makes it look even more like a cheap donkey kong clone the only other level to be included is snake lake despite this the graphics are nicely detailed with a good amount of color on screen the sound effects and music are pretty good as well you have a nice tight control over your character but it doesn't feel like congo mango [Music] the commodore 64 received two versions with the first one being released in 1983 by sega themselves this was released on cartridge and it features some chunky like a monkey graphics while not as bad as the vic-20 it's still not very good either the animation is fairly smooth but we are treated to only two levels in the game sound effects and music are basic commodore 64 fare from 1983. the controls are very stiff and is pretty difficult to play the other version which came on disc was released in the us in 1985 and it's night and day compared to the original version for starters all four levels are here and the graphics are fantastic while not as good as the arcade obviously it is leaps and bounds above the previous version and almost all other versions on the list it does play really good but the speed is slightly slower than the arcade original [Music] [Laughter] [Music] i never owned an intellivision growing up but a friend of mine did and he had congo [ __ ] the graphics are much better than the 2600 version with more details but the animation is a bit worse you also only get two levels just like on the 2600 the sound effects are also merely average back in the day i absolutely hated the intellivision controller but playing this game on an emulator with an xbox controller it wasn't too bad [Music] the collegial vision version is very well done with detailed graphics and smooth animation the only downside i can see is that certain sprites are in monochrome but other than that it looks great with plenty of color on screen sound effects and music are very nice and it controls great there are even three levels from the arcade game included [Music] the apple ii version looks pretty good except for one thing your character and all of the other sprites except for bongo were all of the albino type everything is white from the monkeys to the hippos to the snakes to you the animation is fairly smooth and the speed is about on par with the arcade original the sound effects are another story we get a rapid succession of ratatat machine gun farts throughout the game and a blaring end of level tune the controls are also a bit stiff with some iffy collision detection [Music] [Music] the msx version looks a bit odd in my opinion our hero has apparently upped his caloric intake in preparation for his revenge on bongo because he now looks like humpty dumpty similar to the coleco vision all of the sprites are monochrome here as well there are very few sound effects in the game but quite a bit of music which sounds rather good the controls are terrible with some horrendous collision detection thrown in the texas instruments version looks decent enough with smooth animation but absolutely terrible controls it doesn't seem like you are lined up properly with the clips making jumping and climbing pretty much impossible bongo now looks like a bobble head with his giant overstuffed cranium and stiff pose i would not recommend this version to anyone even people i didn't like [Music] and last but not least we have the ms-dos version despite using only cga colors the characters are detailed and easily recognizable the monkeys have a different colored tail you have a different colored belt etc the character animation is choppy though which definitely hurts the gameplay however it includes all four levels found in the arcade game and the opening sequence where bongo lights your tent on fire oddly enough it doesn't have an ending sequence where it shows you lighting bongo on fire the sound effects and music are not bad considering it uses the pc speaker there is a little bit of queefiness but not a whole lot going on [Music] congo bongo was a rare bird indeed i'm sure it started out life is a simple donkey kong cash crab and even though it's not as fun as the original i still enjoyed this game if you've never played this game before and have a hankering to spank those naughty monkeys be sure and give this game a shot you'll be glad you did if you enjoyed this video be sure to like comment share and subscribe also if you would like to support me on patreon please click the link below if you would like to contribute but not sign up for 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Channel: PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries

Views: 29,519

Keywords: NES, arcade, SNES, amputee, Xbox, PlayStation, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, retro, video, gamesAtari, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar, entertainment, system, Game, Boy, Genesis, Mega, drive, CD, X68000, Amstrad, spectrum, MSX, 2600, 5200, 7800, 400, 800, 1200, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, 360, one, switch, GameCube, wii, wii-u, radar scope, ZAXXON, Ikegami, Shigeru, Tsushinki, Donkey Kong Junior, donkey Kong, SG-1000, Texas instruments, Sega Memorial, Iwasaki Engineering, Sore wa “Pong” kara Hajimatta, Lawsuit

Id: 6_vfELw_mJM

Length: 23min 33sec (1413 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 10 2022