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Steve Wiebe is the King of Kong Again
Anyone who watched 'The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters' knows the epic struggle for global Kong dominance waged by Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell. Wiebe took back the crown by scoring 1,064,500-points which was officially verified. And if you haven't seen the movie, go watch it. You won't be sorry.
Billy Mitchell really came off as a douche willing to do whatever it takes to win, including cheat. Although, with any type of editing, it's easy for the author to portray a person in whatever way they choose.
Either way, congrats to Wiebe!
The filmmaker did a fabulous job of creating a compelling story with interesting characters, where there was no story, and nothing but boring people. All the scripted 'reality' directors on TV these days should take note of this film, it should be their Citizen Kane.
However, I wouldn't infer too much about what people are really like based on it.
Think of the editting of Homer's TV NewsZine interview when he was accused of sexual harassment.
Now maybe he can spend some time with his kids. The scene in the documentary with him playing DK while his kids were asking for his help really depressed me. I'm not saying he's a bad guy, I just hope he uses this as an impetus to start being a dad.
After watching King of Kong I'm extremely happy to hear Wiebe is back on top. Something about Billy Mitchell has never sat right with me.
Perhaps how the 'documentary' demonized him? Is he egotistical and full of himself? Probably. But it seems the documentary was either not entirely truthful or misrepresented time lines. I met Walter Day at the Mall of America in college and will say that in the few minutes I chatted with him he was the kindest and most honest person I have met. If Walter Day doesn't think Billy Mitchell is pure evil than neither do I. If Billy had tried to do anything truly sinister I think Day would have short circuited it and I'm not clear on whether or not the mailed in tape that beat Wiebe in the documentary was actually accepted.
I'd be careful to accept something as truth when it could have made for gripping cinema. Mitchell is such a villain in the documentary that it's almost too good to be true when juxtaposing him to Wiebe.
I would caution your "doesn't sit right with me" assessment from a film and point out it's probably as reliable as anything meant to entertain someone can be. Yeah there's probably some truth to it. But Mitchell is no more purely evil than Wiebe is purely good. Selective footage can make it seem that way though. Before you jump all over Mitchell I would suggest you read the this and meet him first. You've selected one single source that is a highly entertaining movie and it has a very high chance of being unfairly biased to represent an epic battle between good and evil. They may be foils of each other in several ways but I would imagine some of it is manufactured to put you on Wiebe's side. Mitchell's devoted a lot of his life to video games and has held other records. The documentary really doesn't seem to investigate the positives of Mitchell as much as it does Wiebe.
Just something to consider when judging others.
My work here is dung.
I watched that movie on Hulu a couple months back. It is probably still on there, if it hasn't expired. Check it out.
Suggested reading: Twin Galaxies' Official Statements about "The King of Kong". They probably shouldn't even be allowed to call that movie a "documentary".
Sturgeon was an optimist.
Yeah it's been stated that the movie's editing makes certain things seem different than how they went down. Stuff like how Billy Mitchell's videotaped score being rejected the following day and Walter Day apologizing to Weibe. And when Weibe's videotaped score was rejected, the record reverted to the other record he set in 2003, not to Mitchell. And Weibe has stated that the scene in the restaurant where Mitchell avoids him leaves out the part that came later where Mitchell came over and apologized for being rude and introduced his wife.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_kong#Disputed_facts
Weibe is the everyman character we all identify with and Mitchell has an abrasive personality that make for an excellent film. But both men agree that the movie doesn't portray them correctly. Still, it's a great film. What I wonder is - will there ever be a DK score that's literally impossible to beat?
Schnapple
Why not just link to the original story?
http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=19&id=2264
I have to return some videotapes...
A "kill-screen" in a game is when the high score overflows its boundaries and corrupts the rest of memory, typically video memory, which causes the game to display in a way that is unplayable. The result is either the game crashing or the player losing a game life.
-dZ.
You're a little off. Scores overflowing don't usually cause this type of issue. They could, but it's less likely.
Kill screens are typically because of either the number of lives or the level of the game goes beyond 127 (or 255).
PacMan for example has the issue when you go beyond Level 255, the level goes back to 0. The level is used as an offset. Well, for the normal game (when the game starts), the offset is 1. Think of it as accessing an Array outside its bounds. So what you wind up with is the famous split screen that you can't get past.
Gravitar (and a whole host of other games) has an issue with the number of lives if you go beyond 127 because it uses a signed integer to track the number of lives. So once you hit your 129th extra life, the game actually thinks you have -2 lives. Then you die, it subtracts 1, you now have less then 1 life left and you die, game over.
In the case of Donkey Kong, it's based on the number of levels as the game dies in the same exact spot every time.
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