The Game: As Stanley the gardener, you’re trying to repel a swarm of pests unleashed by that meanest of pixellated gorillas, while also using your pesticide to propel him off the screen. Protect your flowers and yourself, and wear plenty of Off. (Nintendo, 1986)
Memories: As much as many gamers don’t grow as attached to Donkey Kong 3 as they did with the first games in that series, with its Mario-less sidestep into shooter territory, it’s still quite a bit of fun, and this NES cartridge captures the arcade experience perfectly.
Every stage of the stubborn ape’s third coin-op outing is preserved intact, and the control transition from joystick to joypad is surprisingly smooth. It looks, sounds and plays like the original, and when you’re talking about early-to-mid-80s arcade translations, you can’t ask for a better stamp of authenticity than that.
Sadly, while Donkey Kong and his other co-stars went on to greater things, this game – later revived in the form of an E-Card Reader game for the Game Boy Advance – was the last anyone has heard from Stanley. Hopefully his lack of further appearances in the video game world didn’t “bug” him.
