If you have not seen The King of Kong yet then you might want to skip this article as it contains spoilers for the movie and then some… YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
After I saw The King of Kong I went home to check out the much talked about site in the film TwinGalaxies.com, the site that maintains videogame world records for all the games and even supplies the records for the Guinness Book. When I got there I was shocked to see an article that read Donkey Kong Record Falls crediting Billy Mitchell as the “Donkey Kong” record holder because I just saw King of Kong, which told me Steve Wiebe was the record holder.
Mitchell and Wiebe are the source material for the film and it paints Mitchell as an arogant prick and Wiebe as the underdog good guy from the start. Since I have never met either of them I can’t say who is what, but I will say Mitchell does not appear to be a nice guy.
So, now with the record back in the hands of the enemy I kept that news to myself and didn’t include it in my review of the film since it does spoil the ending and after all, how many people are going to be geeky enough like myself to actually go research what they just saw in a documentary? Not many is my guess. So those people went home thinking Wiebe was the winner and happy, even though Mitchell was apparently the new record holder… Until last night!
Yup, last night in Texas at a screening of The King of Kong at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Steve Wiebe set a new “Donkey Kong” world record in front of a live audience and Twin Galaxies referee Walter Day. The video is featured below and as you will see, they check the game board, the chips, the cabinet and everything else to make sure this machine is a legit machine. You will see all of this in The King of Kong and it is complete craziness! Even Harry Knowles from Ain’t It Cool was in attendance.
Check out the vid below and you will see just how serious these guys take this whole thing, and then go check out the movie, you will be glad you did.
You can get an HD version of the video here.
