New "Perfect Game" Donkey Kong Record May Be Unbeatable (polygon.com)
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."
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."
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.
"Didn't lose a single Mario"
Who the hell is Mario? This is Donkey Kong. Did you mean Jumpman?
I knew I needed to stop reading Slashdot and finish my PhD when I started to miss articles by Bennett Haselton.