Donkey Kong World Record haha

[Mellow]

just read it

 

"Masters of the Arcade Caught in a Replay"

IN THE ZONE Steve Wiebe in the back of his garage, in Redmond, Wash., where he tries for a video game scoring record

 

 

 

 

 

 

ON a nondescript street in a typical subdivision in this suburb 12 miles northeast of Seattle, Steve Wiebe, 38, pursues a thoroughly modern goal. Many nights after his two children are in bed, he settles on a stool in his garage not far from the hot-water heater, his Craftsman lawnmower and the ceremonial paddle from his college fraternity. He turns on a video camera mounted on the wall over his shoulder, takes a breath, cricks his neck and attempts to set a world-record high score at Donkey Kong.

 

Yes, Donkey Kong, that vintage 1981 video game and Reagan-era relic of bowling alleys, waiting rooms and pizza parlors. Under Mr. Wiebe’s precise, almost surgical command, the tubby on-screen character known as Mario, in red hat and overalls, scales ladders, leaps barrels and navigates a construction site as he tries to save a damsel in distress from the game’s eponymous ape.

 

“I was looking for something that I could be in control of,” Mr. Wiebe, now a schoolteacher, said recently in his kitchen while he heated a bowl of clam chowder for his 10-year-old daughter. “I felt like everything in my life was being decided by others. Donkey Kong was something I could do, and if I failed, I would have no one to blame but myself.”

 

While Mario, the mascot of the multibillion-dollar Nintendo company, has in some quarters become more recognizable than Mickey Mouse, and a symbol of a gaming industry that rivals Hollywood in its revenues and cultural influence, gamers like Mr. Wiebe have remained frozen in time. As games have grown more complex in the last 25 years, gaming itself has become a mainstream (if not totally cool) pursuit. That evolution might never have happened if not for the small cadre of early, obsessive players who fostered the pastime through its awkward years.

 

MANY grown-up gamers have since moved on to more sophisticated fare, but a small subset of nostalgists has gravitated toward the simple, repetitive but addictive games from the genre’s Paleolithic era. While most gamers seek the flashiest graphics and deepest stories, the die-hards keep flicking joysticks on decades-old machines. Some want no greater validation than their initials on a high-score list; others spend years pursuing records that might offer pixelized immortality.

 

“If you go to a rock concert or something, you’re just observing,” Mr. Wiebe said. “If you see a movie, it’s the same ending every time. But every time you start a game, not only can something different happen, but you’re actually involved in making it happen. That’s pretty exciting, and that’s what keeps people coming back.”

 

Mr. Wiebe, whose personal quest for the record is the subject of a forthcoming documentary, “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters,” had his first showdown with Donkey Kong as a 13-year-old in 1982 at a Pizza Haven in nearby Bellevue, just as millions of others around the world were also discovering video games. But it wasn’t until he was laid off from Boeing a decade ago that he dedicated himself to breaking the world record — 874,300 points — which was set in 1982 by a 17-year-old in South Florida named Billy Mitchell.

 

“Video games were it back then,” said Mr. Mitchell, now 42. “They were everywhere. They were more powerful, more influential than movies or music. But more than the games themselves, it was the culture of the arcade. It was where people went to compete, to excel.”

 

Today, Mr. Mitchell lives in Hollywood, Fla., where he operates two restaurants and makes several lines of hot sauce. But since the early ’80s he has also been the most visible of a group of players whose high-score feats on arcade games like Defender and Ms. Pac-Man have occasionally commanded the attention of the mainstream news media. His teenage self has been permanently preserved in a 1983 Life magazine portrait of the young gaming scene’s most accomplished players. (He appears in a hooded sweatshirt, squinting slightly, while standing behind a Centipede machine.)

 

It can be easy to forget that video games were considered an exciting evocation of the modern age when they first burst into popular consciousness. When Mattel wanted to sell its home game console, the Intellivision, to picky players, the toy company hired the erudite George Plimpton as its spokesman. In the 1983 James Bond adventure “Never Say Never Again,” a tuxedo-clad Sean Connery faces off against Maximilian Largo, the evil genius played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, not at a baccarat table but at a video game in a casino.

 

But in the late ’80s, with the advent of inexpensive, relatively powerful home consoles like the original Nintendo Entertainment System, video games retreated from the public sphere. Gaming became something you did at home, probably alone. The image of the isolated, desensitized game geek entered the vernacular.

 

And there it has remained, at least in mainstream white culture. (In urban and black communities, the overwhelming popularity of sports video games, as opposed to fantasy and science-fiction fare, has meant that games have never been considered quite as nerdy.)

 

Now, as the first generation to grow up with video games dips its toes into the deep pool of middle age, gaming is entering another era of respectability. Nintendo’s new Wii consoles grace the living rooms of young professionals who would never have been caught dead with an original PlayStation, while their parents play Sudoku on handheld game units. Two weeks ago, CBS became the first American broadcast network to televise competitive video games as a sport, an innovation that can rightly trace its origins to Mr. Mitchell and his arcade crew.

 

“The Billy Mitchells of the world, they are the foundation of the pyramid for where gaming is today,” said Andy McNamara, the editor-in-chief of the video game magazine Game Informer. “These guys have kept the history alive for all these years.”

And as younger players continue to rediscover first-generation games on 21st century consoles, they are also introduced to the fanatical button-pushers who helped bring them national attention.

 

“The kids on Xbox Live don’t necessarily know who these are guys are at first,” Mr. McNamara said, “but then they download a classic game like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, and they do a little research online, and they realize that someone like Billy Mitchell set the record before they were even born.”

 

Meanwhile, the lives of these gamers continue to provide fodder for movies: the documentary “Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade,” which chronicles the lives of several players in that Life magazine photograph, was shown at the Sundance Film Festival this year. New Line Cinema has the rights to make a fictionalized version of “The King of Kong.”

 

Of course, every great story needs a villain, or at least a foil. In “The King of Kong,” that role falls to Mr. Mitchell and what are portrayed as the corrupt cabal of gamers who conspire to deny Mr. Wiebe his rightful place in the digital firmament. Mr. Mitchell said he is used to these kinds of caricatures, but also said the film had been slanted to provide an easily digestible morality play.

 

“I don’t have a problem being laughed at and being made fun of,” Mr. Mitchell said. “But I feel it’s incredibly wrong to take these people who trusted them and criminalize them when it’s clearly not the case. They take people who are dedicated to the hobby, and give their time and effort and resources, and show them to be corrupt and incompetent. It’s absolutely absurd.”

 

For now, Mr. Mitchell has the last laugh. Last year, Mr. Wiebe set a Donkey Kong record of 1,049,100 points. But last month, in a 2-hour 39-minute marathon at the annual convention of the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers, Mr. Mitchell topped him with a score of 1,050,200. (Mr. Mitchell agreed to play at the ’80s-themed convention after organizers made a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.)

 

Back in the garage in Redmond, Mr. Wiebe said Mr. Mitchell’s latest score was just one more barrel to leap over.

 

“I don’t feel like my skills are deteriorating,” Mr. Wiebe said. “Actually, I keep learning new things about this game and I look forward to the competition. It’s almost scary that Billy and I could keep at this for a while.”

 

 

 

discuss...

[Harvey Wallbanger]

Donkey Kong was originally supposed to be called "Monkey Kong", but the title got mixed up in the translation to English. By the time they figured it out, the labels were all printed, and it was too late.

 

Similarly, Milky Way and 3 Musketeers bars are supposed to have the opposite names.

[Bojangles]

Bump for his stance. bump for fanboy with the Polaroid.

[papa_dukes]

my mind is swept

[skullnbones]

The arcade game in his garage looks fucking cool.

[roadpig]

Tapper!

[T4M*]

I have that game as teh emulator. Its a fun game, but i bet is much funner to play it on the arcade cus it brings back memories.

[fun haver]

Similarly, Milky Way and 3 Musketeers bars are supposed to have the opposite names.

 

makes sense

[T4M*]

I was going to make a GIF out this video, but its too long.

 

Donkey Kong VS. Halo

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=l0Kg-lA4R6E