Mario, his most famous creation, owes his appearance to the technological limitations of the first Donkey Kong game.
But every time he reaches his distressed damsel, Donkey Kong whisks her away.
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Now that the criminal case is out of the way, her civil case is back on like Donkey Kong.
At first, the Nintendo executives in America thought that Donkey Kong, as both a name and a game, was doomed.
Big players like Link, Samus, Donkey Kong, Kirby and all 5, 000 Pokemon are conspicuously absent everywhere except in Nintendoland minigames.
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The sights and sounds of old-school games like Frogger and Donkey Kong are now becoming a part of mainstream music and culture.
Most of us grew up on Mario and Link and Donkey Kong.
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Back in the day, games like Pong, Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong introduced the first generation of gamers to the magic of interactive entertainment.
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There was also Donkey Kong, which was unlike any of these others: it had a sense of humor, a narrative context, and beguilingly goofy graphics.
Created in 1981 by Nintendo's legendary videogame designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario was initially only known as "Jumpman, " the nondescript hero of arcade hit Donkey Kong.
Take "Donkey Kong's Crash Course, " which has you tilting the GamePad left or right to steer a rickety roller through a zany Rube Goldberg-ish obstacle course.
Miyamoto, of course, went on to create several of the biggest video game franchises of all time, including Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda.
Nintendo also has been able to offer all of its key franchises in this collection, including Mario, Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Pikmin and Yoshi.
The most powerful of these are Mario, Pokemon and Zelda, but they can draw on Kirby, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong and many others if need be.
Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.
Ralph, akin to giant Nintendo ape Donkey Kong, is sick of his day job as an 8-bit bad guy without agency who is forced to wreak havoc.
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Ralph and Felix live in an old-school Donkey Kong-like land.
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As the name suggests, the handhelds featured a clock and alarm but the real attraction was the games, which included titles like Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, and Balloon Fight.
Series that have been going as far back as the 80s are still going strong, with Zelda, Metroid, Kirby and Donkey Kong titles always the top sellers for each system along with Mario.
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For those of us who never had enough skill (or enough quarters to hone it), we saw it in the documentary, The King of Kong: Donkey Kong does not have a real finale.
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Starting in January and running through July, users will be able to demo one select title per month from the eShop: Balloon Fight, F-Zero, Punch-Out featuring Mr. Dream, Kirby's Adventure, Super Metroid, Yoshi and Donkey Kong.
In the minds of gamers, Nintendo is and will always be the company that makes Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong et al. But to others, Nintendo is first and foremost the company that makes Brain Age, Wii Fit, or just funnels Netflix into their TVs.
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However, the man who brought to life Nintendo legends like Mario, Link and Donkey Kong is preaching patience with the console, saying the Wii U, with its touchscreen controller that augments big-screen play, is so different that it will take time for people to understand its real value.
Nintendo didn't run out of steam after it unleashed its hero plumber on the world: Several other of the world's best-selling game franchises were created by the 116-year-old company, including Donkey Kong (which has sold nearly 48 million games outside of the Mario titles) and The Legend of Zelda (about 47 million).
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