Competition for Donkey Kong world record is still fierce

While the somewhat-sensationalist – but still awesome – documentary on the rivalry for one of gaming's most honourable top scores, King of Kong, was released nearly six years ago at this point, the race for the world record is still ongoing. And though haven't seen a changing of the highest of the high scores since plastic surgeon Hank Chien beat his own best in November last year to raise the bar to 1,138,600, some players have recently come agonisingly close.

At the Kong Off 2 – where 20+ high ranking DK players all get together to compete head to hear – we saw the three most recognisable names in Donkey Kong – Steve Wiebe, Hank Chien and Billy Mitchell – fail to take first or even second position. What we did see though, was Canadian Jeff Willms place first with 1,107,600 points. There were two other million + scores that day and impressively another six in the 900,000s.

However, the big news over the weekend was that a new face has appeared in the rankings, clearing away 99 per cent of the competition and becoming the number two of all time. 21 year old Vincent Lemay of Quebec, managed a 1,135,900 score game that lasted nearly three hours, putting him not only ahead of greats like Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell, but only 2,700 points behind Hank Chien.

According to the DKBlog's rundown of the record attempt, Lemay actually lost his first two lives early on – levels 4 and 5 – which is relatively unheard of for a record attempt. However, his scoring at this point was actually higher than Chien's so he forged on. It was only a sub-par scoring on the last few screens that relegated his potential world record run to second place.

KitGuru Says: I've had very few arcade cabinet runs, but my MAME score sits at 76,700. Pathetic by the standards of these record holders, but I'm pleased with it. What's your personal bests?

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