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New "Perfect Game" Donkey Kong Record May Be Unbeatable (polygon.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the now-Mario-retires dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Standing in front on a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet, Wes Copeland set a new all-time high score on Thursday, playing Donkey Kong for 3 hours, 20 minutes, and scoring 1,218,000 points."It's how he took the title, though that's so staggering," reports Polygon. "Copeland did not lose a single Mario in the game. He took his first life all the way from the first level all the way to the end, cashing in the extra lives to obliterate all comers." Since the game ends after 22 levels, it will be difficult to surpass Copeland's "perfect game".

For comparison, Steve Wiebe set a high score in 2007 with just 695,500 points in the documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters," eventually bumping his score up to 1,064,500 by 2010. But Thursday, posting a picture of his new high score on Facebook, Copeland announced that "This will be my last record score. I don't believe I can put up a game any higher than this."

5 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Pretty sure he died at 3:12:45 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Am I trippin? In the video of the feat, he eats a fire barrel at 3:12:45. Does that not count?

    1. Re:Pretty sure he died at 3:12:45 by Sowelu · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh! I think I see what's going on. The game only has 22 levels, and you are not directly awarded extra points for extra lives remaining. Instead, if you run out the clock on a life and score all possible points, then you've converted that extra life into points. So get to the end, blow all but the final life getting points, and finally complete the game. Confusingly written, but correct play.

    2. Re:Pretty sure he died at 3:12:45 by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      The 22nd level is a "kill screen". Due to a bug in the game it can't be completed because the time limit for the level is too short to finish it. Many games of that era had similar bugs due to either a lack of testing or the developers thinking that people simply would never get that far. PacMan is probably the most well known example, with level 255 being corrupt and impossible to complete.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Re:I'm pretty sure he died by Sowelu · · Score: 3, Informative

    Huh, my first comment didn't post so this might be duplicated. You're not actually awarded points for extra lives; if you beat the last level with lives remaining, they're wasted. So you get to the last level, then spend all lives except your last one collecting as many points as are possible during a life, and finally beat the game with your last life. Confusingly written, but correct play.

  3. play the fixed rom that has no kill screen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get.htm