Today, I'm going to talk about using something old to achieve something new - new high score, that is.
Ever since the rise of video arcades, countless people dropped quarters into their favorite machines to be able to inscribe their initials at the top of the high score board, so they could pull their friends and passers-by aside and say, "That score in the number one spot, that's me." Pretty soon, tournaments were held at local arcades, even game shows, such as Starcade, showcased the abilities of these video jocks. But, for some, that wasn't enough. Sure it was great to brag about your name flashing on the screen, and, if you won the grand prize in Starcade, you went home with a shiny, new arcade game. However, there were people who reached a certain level of skill and endurance, who surpassed the majority of video game jocks around the world. For them, it wasn't enough to be number one in their arcades or in the state. For a select few, all that matters is reaching the ultimate pinnacle, the top score worldwide.
While there seems to have always been people who have reached heights unattained by anyone else, the struggle to be on top has not always been a topic of widespread interest, but, recently, it seems that more people are starting to notice.
You could probably pinpoint the beginning this rise in interest at the 2007 release of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (which a scripted film adaptation of the documentary is in progress). Since then, the contest for getting the high score in numerous arcade games has been increasingly publicized. Since The King of Kong, arcade superstar Billy Mitchell regained his title with a new high score in Donkey Kong, only to have been recently surpassed by relative newcomer Hank Chien. Steve Wiebe, who was the one who topped Mitchell's record score in the film, went on to get the worldwide high score at Donkey Kong Jr. All these events that have transpired have been reported and chronicled in numerous video game websites with the epicenter of the action focused at Twin Galaxies, an organization that have been recording and verifying all the high scores made by people around the world since 1981, making them the official high score record archive of every kind of video game (not just arcade games). Even the Guinness Book of World Records go to them for video game records.
I mention all this because, last night, I witnessed arcade history in the making. John P. McAllister, who holds 29 world records on Twin Galaxies, just added number 30 to the list as he topped the record high score in Asteroids (41,336,440 points) that had been set by Scott Safran waaaaay back in 1982. John video recorded the event (which is needed for Twin Galaxies to verify his high score run), but he also had it streaming live on the internet, so that people around the world could witness the event. I caught the last hour of his run and it was extremely fascinating. When he was in the zone, he danced around the flying rocks as he blasted them to nothing. It was truly an amazing ballet of spaceship and space debris. I watched him rack up his score during point presses, which are moments in the game that can be utilized for optimum point scoring. In Asteroids, the point press is when you've cleared over half the asteroids on the screen and the flying saucers start coming out, firing at you. Ideally, you leave one tiny asteroid floating about while you shoot down flying saucers, one after the other, scoring 1,000 points each time. Once the last asteroid is destroyed, the screen fills up with another wave of them and the point press ends. Toward the end, it was kind of amusing, as the flying saucers kept shooting down the last small asteroid, prematurely ending quite a few point presses.
There was one moment, while I watched, where things got a bit hairy. John had to go to the bathroom (which is, pretty much, a luxury when you're shooting for these world record scores). He had plenty of lives stored up, so he figured he would leave the game for a moment to "take care of business," all the while, he was losing ship after ship. When he came back, he still had twelve lives left, but he lost that "in the zone" feeling. His lives were quickly depleting. He eventually got down to two lives left, almost prematurely ending his run, when he found his groove again and, actually, got better. During the point presses, which were, originally, a source of quite a few deaths, he made perfect strafing runs, laying waste to one flying saucer after another.
Finally, at about 12:12 am, Central Standard Time, John had broken through Scott Safran's high score and, ultimately, raised the bar to an impressive 41,338,740 points. He put his signature on the high score board, ELF, and celebrated. Since the score on Asteroids resets back to "00" after every 100,000 points, the high score screen only showed 38,740, thus the reason to chronicle the event on video.
John was even interviewed after the momentous achievement, going on to say that he holds the world record for games such as Asteroids Deluxe and Star Castle. After the initial celebrations, John took the camera inside his arcade machine to show that the cabinet, dip switches, and circuitboards weren't altered to prove he did this without any "electronic assistance" (aka: cheating) and then shut the feed down.
Watching the video gave me some insight into how people go for their high score runs. During the news interview, John said he tried before to break the record with no one else around, but only got to 22 million before giving in. He said that the proximity of people giving him advice and support helped him break the record. From what I could hear while he was playing, it sounded like he had quite a few good friends around for a "record breaking" party.
The heightened exposure these video game masters have been getting is very reassuring. Since The King of Kong, others have done documentaries about these arcade mavens, both past and present. As I said before, magazines and video game news sites have been following the competition, even interviewing such people as the previously mentioned Steve Wiebe and Hank Chien. It shows that there is still some interest in these classic arcade games and that their time in the sun is not necessarily over. As long as there are gamers who want to push the boundaries set by those before them and garner their claim to fame as a world record score holder, then these games of yesteryear will still hold a place in the hearts of gamers everywhere.
I would like to congratulate John P. McAllister for his record breaking accomplishment and thank him for sharing this event with the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment