New Record High Score for Donkey Kong

Arcade game record high scores were a big deal back in the ’80s. Then arcades died. Other than mall owners looking for a cheap placeholder next to the movie theater, most arcade cabinets left in the US were relegated to bowling alleys and pizza places.

Then The King of Kong came out, not only shining a light on the few people still chasing these records, but driving new interest in the old games and who was (at least on record) the best in the world at them.

Since The King of Kong came out, the Donkey Kong world record has changed hands multiple times, settling on a plastic surgeon from New York named Hank Chien. That is until the record was beaten again… by Hank Chien.

Chien’s new record score is an astonishing 1,110,100. In an interview with the Examiner, Chien said this was without even reaching the game’s killscreen, meaning if he has another game like this he could bump the record even higher.

“I died two screens shy of the killscreen so my score would have been a little higher, perhaps 1.12 million points,” Chien said. “I had a spare man going into Level 21 and was mentally preparing to sacrifice it on the last barrel board and my game was over a few minutes later. That’s how Donkey Kong rolls sometimes.”

Chien said he is now setting his sights on the world record for Centipede, which has different records for different settings and time limits (or lack thereof). Whichever version of the record he attempts will be a heck of a challenge though, as one has stood since 2004 and another since 2000.

Via G4TV