Nothing like watching a documentary about gamer geeks. I find this all very sad somehow. And you know what's sadder, I actually want to see this movie and can't because the closest theater that's playing it is in NY. Here's the trailer:
Here's some background on the story:
In the early 1980s, there was no such thing as PlayStation. If you wanted to play the coolest new video games, you pinched quarters from Mom’s purse and went to the arcade. Back then, being an ace at video games didn’t mean you were a shut-in with hygiene problems. Back then, being a video game wizard would get you chicks.It actually got a pretty decent review from the Seattle Times.
In this time of game gods, there was no one more godlike than Billy Mitchell. In 1982 — at the age of 17 — Billy Mitchell held the high score in “Centipede” and “Donkey Kong.”
At 34, he scored the first-ever perfect game in “Pac-Man.” And in 2006, MTV named him one of the top 10 most influential video game players of all time.
Enter Steve Wiebe, a laid-off engineer from Redmond, Wash. Bummed out and looking for “something positive,” as he puts it, he found Mitchell’s “Donkey Kong” score online, and figured he could beat it. After all, he’d played a ton in college, where he says he beat Mitchell’s score.
But this time, Wiebe wasn’t fooling around at the frat house. This time, more was at stake. So in 2003, Wiebe got a stand-up “Donkey Kong” machine, installed it in his garage, and set to work.
“I had more time on my hands than the average person,” says the married father of two. “I was good at ‘Donkey Kong,’ and thought it was something that would give me a boost.”
Wiebe’s efforts to topple Mitchell’s high score — and his struggle to be recognized by his video-gaming peers — is chronicled in the new film “The King of Kong,” which is set to release on August 17.
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The film has more twists than a bag of pretzels, but the salient plot points are thus: Wiebe started playing “Donkey Kong” like a madman — the audience is treated to a funny/sad scene of him ignoring his kid’s anguished cries to “Stop playing ‘Donkey Kooooooong!’” But if you’ve seen any sports films, you know the drill: Sometimes our hero has to put his family second to achieve video-game glory.
In July 2005, Wiebe reached the Holy Grail of “Donkey Kong” — the mythical “kill screen,” where the machine just runs out of memory — and a world record high score. He videotaped his achievement and submitted it to Twin Galaxies, the governing body of competitive video gaming, to be verified.
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