Crazy Kong Part II (set 1)

Arcade Video game published 43 years ago:

Crazy Kong - Part II (c) 1981 Falcon.

A "Donkey Kong" clone.

- TECHNICAL -

Main CPU : Zilog Z80 (@ 3.072 Mhz)
Sound Chips : General Instrument AY8910 (@ 1.536 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Vertical
Video resolution : 224 x 256 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 96

Players : 2
Control : 4-way joystick
Buttons : 1 (JUMP)

- TRIVIA -

Released in February 1981.

Crazy Kong - Part II is not a bootleg of "Donkey Kong"!! Falcon DID have a license from Nintendo, but it was NOT for the US. Crazy Kong - Part II was supposed to be for sale outside the US (South America, Europe, etc.), but the lag in production of arcade DK's by Nintendo for a 3 month period during 1981-82 made demand for any DK type game go through the roof. At this time, Nintendo of America was moving from NY-NJ to Redmond WA and there was a 4 month backlog on orders. This opened the door for the illegal Crazy Kongs to fill the demand. Approximately 20,000 Crazy Kong were distributed illegally in the U.S.

The main difference between Crazy Kong and "Donkey Kong" is the sound, and color capabilities. Crazy Kong ran on hardware that had the same processor as "Donkey Kong", but its video capabilities were lacking, and it had a totally different sound chip. Basically what all this means is that Crazy Kong had terrible sound, and some definite strangeness in the color area. The background music is missing entirely, and most of the sound effects have been changed. For example, in Crazy Kong, Mario makes a 'Hiya!' sound when he jumps, instead of the 'Boing!' that he makes in "Donkey Kong". The graphics use slightly different colors, which change from level to level. The Kong animations are also different, and often do not match up with the in game action. There are also mild changes in gameplay. Kong doesn't toss out nearly as many barrels, and there are other mild changes such as gaps in platforms that were not in the original, and the manner in which the elevators work has changed as well.

There were lots of different Crazy Kong cabinets. The most common one was similar in design to the "Donkey Kong" cabinet, but the artwork was more realistic, and the monitor bezel had a circular clear area, as opposed to the rectangle that most games had. Crazy Kong could also be found in cocktail format. These were usually conversions, and were only decorated with an instruction card.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Warp To Level 2 (doesn't work on the "Scramble" hardware bootleg version) : Climb up to the second beam (the one with the hammer right by it). Walk to the right so that Mario is still facing away from you (you can see his back) and is suspended off the side of end of the beam, then jump to the right. He'll 'fall thru' the bottom of the screen and clear it, as if he had climbed all the way to the top.

* A Trick : On the conveyor belt level, Grab the bottom hammer (the one on the row with the full length conveyor belt) and go all the way to the right side of the screen. Push the joystick Right and he'll drop the hammer. Sometimes it'll be in the up position and sometimes it'll be sitting toward the left of Mario. If it's in the up position, jump up and grab it and keep repeating until he drops it on the left position. After this, you can walk away and anything that comes into contact with it will be splatted (Good way of getting extra points). After a few seconds, the hammer will disappear, but the stuff will still splat when it hits where the hammer should be. NOTE : This trick only works on the second level or higher!

* Depending on what PCB the game cabinet had, you could run behind Kong on the rivet screen. This made clearing the rivets much easier.

* On the versions that did not allow you to run behind Kong on the rivet screen, you could stand next to Kong and jump backwards being awarded 100 points.

- PORTS -

* CONSOLES: