Congo Bongo is an isometric platform arcade game released by Sega in 1983. The game has come to be seen as Sega's answer to the highly successful Donkey Kong game that was released two years prior. The player takes the role of a red-nosed safari hunter who tries to catch an ape named "Bongo". The hunter seeks Bongo to exact revenge for an apparent practical joke in which Bongo set fire to the hunter's tent, giving him a literal "hotfoot". The game was named by Peter W. Gorrie who was the CFO of Sega at that time.
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Congo Bongo was pretty neat to play. It's SEGA's take on Donkey Kong with it's own bit of flair to differentiate it, mainly with the isometric perspective and control.
Its not one of the best arcade games I've played, there's better games out there, but this was a neat little game to mess with for a bit. May go back to it to see how far I get.
Its not one of the best arcade games I've played, there's better games out there, but this was a neat little game to mess with for a bit. May go back to it to see how far I get.
Isometric Donkey Kong with a slower pace. The art style and level design is really well done here, but it does feel like most of the effort went into figuring out how to make the isometric levels. The gameplay loop itself feels more of a stroll through each of the four pretty levels than any sort of a challenge.
The bad timeline Sega Donkey Kong
Como Donkey Kong pero con vista isométrica. Entretenido sin mas.
Well, it's all right. Certainly doesn't have Donkey Kong's staying power, though I'm sure transposing the Zaxxon isometric perspective into a platformer was pretty dang impressive for '83. You do run into a readability issue though - the perspective makes it tricky to judge jumps throughout and where coconuts will land in Primate Peak. You can eventually figure it out, but it's less intuitive than the side perspective.
Also, is this the first video game to feature wall jumping? It's clearly a bad idea here, but funny to think that such a technical move got its start in a game where pulling it off mostly means adding insult to injury with a lost life.
Those rhinos are pretty dang cute, though.
Also, is this the first video game to feature wall jumping? It's clearly a bad idea here, but funny to think that such a technical move got its start in a game where pulling it off mostly means adding insult to injury with a lost life.
Those rhinos are pretty dang cute, though.
An obscure sega arcade game that tries to capitalize off of Donkey Kongs success. Thankfully this game never went anywhere is its isometric perspective makes the game kinda hard to play and in reality, just isn't fun to play. There are literally hundreds of better arcade games at the time that would be more worth your while.