As anyone who reads my website updates knows, I am a huge Donkey Kong fan. I’m also a fan of the recent movie “The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters”. The movie, presented as a documentary but not truly “accurate”, made a fun rivalry between Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe. The movie quickly became a cult classic, renewing interest in classic arcade gaming and competitive gaming. Even though there have been several classic games that have recently had long-standing world records toppled, such as Joust a few months ago, Donkey Kong is still the king. When Donkey Kong has its record beaten, it makes national news. Interest in the movie also spawned many new competitors beyond Steve and Billy. One such competitor, Hank Chien, surpassed both Billy and Steve and took the World Record last year. The record has passed between all three since then, and is currently held by Hank.

It was only a matter of time before someone was going to be able to put together the ultimate Donkey Kong tournament. Richie “Knucklez” Vavrence, owner of Richie Knucklez Arcade Games in Flemington, NJ held such a tournament this past weekend. Richie is a fantastic promoter and has created some great classic arcade events. This latest event, called “The Kong Off”, lined up 11 of the greatest Donkey Kong players in the world to play for the highest score over a two-day period.
The event was well attended by fans, and in the end Hank Chien passed Steve Wiebe and Eric Howard to claim the Kong Off crown and a $1000 grand prize. I was not able to attend the event but I did check in from time-to-time via the live webcam broadcast of the competition and through various Tweets and blog sites. I’ll post some great links to the end of this post if anyone is interested in reading more about the event.

Donkey Kong cabinets all lined up ready for the tournament. What a great sight! Just like in the 80′s when Donkey Kong was the hottest game in the arcades. Thanks to Eric Howard for the picture!

Great atmosphere with all the fans packed in to watch these guys play. This picture was taken directly from Richie’s Justin.tv broadcast video. It was great to watch during the event! Thanks Richie!

Watching this event has really made me want to make another run at my Donkey Kong high score. I spent several months working on my score and last year finally beat 300,000 points. That was good then but not nearly competitive after seeing all of these other people scoring three times that. I’ve never been close to seeing a Kill Screen (Level 22), so it’s time to try again. I’m going to start playing this game on a regular basis, with the goal of reaching the Kill Screen. I worked on my Joust skills with the goal of reaching 1,000,000 points and recently achieved that milestone. Now time for the true test. Very few people have successfully reached the Kill Screen. I want to be on that list!
I started playing again seriously last night. I only hit 139,400 points, but I guess that’s a start. I’m going to log my scores and levels reached over the next few months and see if I can come close to that Kill Screen. There are several things that I know I do not do well, such as retreating between springs on the later elevator levels. I’ll continue to work on these skills and hopefully get much better. Wish me luck!

Here are some links you might like:

• The Kong Off Official Site
• Richie Knucklez Arcade Games – The home of The Kong Off and Flashback Fridays. Be sure to check out the live Justin.tv streaming!
• Aurcade.com – The Kong Off Tournament Results Page
• The Kong Off Recap by Patrick Scott Patterson (Arcade Game Examiner)
• Rhode Island Donkey Kong contender scores at The Kong-Off (profile of Eric Howard at the Kong Off) by Patrick Scott Patterson (Arcade Game Examiner)

This week I just decided that I will be attending the International Video Game Hall of Fame “Big Bang” event next month. The IVGHOF is a new organization based in Ottumwa, Iowa. The goal of the IVGHOF is to house a museum of every arcade game ever made, and a Hall of Fame of gamers of all eras. Why Ottumwa? Ottumwa was once the home of Twin Galaxies arcade, the famous arcade run by Walter Day. Walter had the idea of holding the “Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard” of arcade high scores back in the peak of classic arcade gaming. The Twin Galaxies arcade is no longer around, a victim of the arcade video game crash in the mid ’80s, but Twin Galaxies is still going strong as an online record book. The history of Twin Galaxies and Walter Day is very interesting and I recommend watching “Chasing Ghosts” or “The King of Kong” to learn more about it. Because of Ottumwa’s unique role in Video Game history, they have been proclaimed as the “Video Game Capital of the World”.

The famous Life Magazine photo of the top arcade game players taken in Ottumwa, 1982

The IVGHOF kicked off last summer with a large event featuring several gaming celebrities, tournaments, and presentations. This year they are again holding a big event that should bring video game personalities and fans from around the country to Ottumwa for a four day celebration. I didn’t have a chance to go last year, but this year I am excited to have the chance to go.

I’ve been working with Walter Day, who is helping organize the event, to bring my Joust machine to the celebration. It will be used for various events, and hopefully there will be some world-class players getting some time on playing it. I’d love to see Steve Sanders take back his World Record on my machine, but we’ll see if he’s up to the challenge!

I’m really excited to experience this piece of classic arcade gaming history and to get a chance to meet some of the arcade greats like Sanders, Billy Mitchell, and maybe Steve Wiebe. Wiebe is scheduled to be inducted in the HOF, so I hope he’s there.

You can read more about the Big Bang event, and the IVGHOF at the official site: IVGHOF.com. There is a list of all of this year’s inductees on the site as well.

For a great documentary of the history of Twin Galaxies, try to see the movie Chasing Ghosts. It never made it to DVD, but it has been shown on Showtime and may again be broadcast.

Check out Twin Galaxies Website to see records of almost all arcade games. There are several scores for MAME emulated arcade games, and consoles both old and new.

This time it was for Donkey Kong Jr. DKJr is way harder than Donkey Kong, and I really stink at it. DKJr was another game that Billy Mitchell was a long time record holder for, until he was beat last August by a guy named Ike Hall. Steve beat Ike’s record by over 100,000 points setting a score of 1,139,800 points. Steve will be attempting to beat the Donkey Kong record on June 2, 2009 at the E3 Enterainment Expo in LA. It will be broadcast live on G4 Television.

Congratulations Steve! Good luck in June trying to set the Donkey Kong record again.

Here’s a link the the Twin Galaxies announcement of the record: Twin Galaxies Announcement

If you haven’t seend King of Kong yet, you have to see it. It really got me excited about making a run at my Donkey Kong high score. King of Kong is a documentary about a couple guys’ attempt to beat each others’ world record high scores in the original Donkey Kong arcade game. There are some “inaccuracies” and some supposed misrepresentation of some of the characters in the film, but overall it is an enteraining movie. If you watch it, make sure you Google some of the more recent information as well as some of the revealing truth behind the movie.

Click here to see more on The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Here are a couple links for more information, or more insight into KOK:

• The King of Kong Official Message Boards – Has some interesting debate on the validity of the movie. Some people are a bit “obsessive”!
• AV Club Billy Mitchell Interview – Great impromptu discussion with Mitchell about the facts of the movie
• TexasGeek.TV King of Kong “Director’s Cut” Clip – Nice video of further Wiebe exploits after Mitchell beat him yet again…