Well, it was bound to happen eventually. A New York plastic surgeon has beaten Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong world record. A new “King of Kong” has arrived.

Face of a champion

Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe were the focus of the “King of Kong” documentary, covering the heated rivalry between the two, with Mitchell atop the leaderboard at the end, but no more. Hank Chien is now the champion of champions.

Chien beat Mitchell’s score by 11,500 points and racked up a whopping 1,061,700 on an original Donkey Kong arcade board.

What’s even more staggering, in an interview with The Examiner, it was revealed Chien has only been playing Donkey Kong seriously since he saw the film.

Source: Examiner via CVG

Steve Weibe, a Washington state native and professional Donkey Kong gamer attempted to dethrone Billy Mitchell from Donkey Kong glory yesterday in a live broadcast attempt at the staggering world record of 1,050,200 on G4TV at E3 in Los Angeles.

How did he do? Sadly, after 4 dramatic tries at the record, Wiebe ultimately fell short in every instance.‚  Was it the pressure packed scenario? Not likely. Wiebe has competed on live television before.‚  Was it a failure of mental aptitude? Again, not likely, as Wiebe is an advanced Algebra teacher and is known to break down the game to a mathematical base.

So what did the man who was first to break the 1,000,000 barrier in the legendary arcade game suffer from in his attempts?‚  Pure, cold, bad luck.

A first attempt yielded a mighty score of 923,400.‚  His second try garnered a tally of 653,700. A third attempt was disrupted by a brief power failure forcing the man to try again, and this time, believe it or not, the infamous “kill screen” halted Wiebe’s efforts at an impressive mark of 989,400.

This event marked the first time ever a Kill Screen was broadcast on live TV, and man oh man, what an unfortunate time for its occurrence.

A kill screen, for those unaware is, according to my main man Wikipedia, any stage or level, most commonly in Arcade games “that stops the player’s progress due to a programming error or design oversight. Rather than “ending” in a traditional sense, the game will crash, freeze, or behave so erratically that further play is impossible.”

Was legendary rival Billy Mitchell behind the power failure and happy to see the kill screen?‚  The world may never know. ‚  As far as we know the man resides in Antarctica perpetually practicing Donkey Kong only to arise when his record is broken.‚  Nah, he lives in sunny Florida, and is a respectable man, but we know Wiebe should be king.

Great rivalries are remembered for all time.‚  Who could forget the Red Sox and Yankees, perpetually stuck in a battle not limited to the confines of the ballpark, or Federer and Nadal, two heavy weights in the world of professional tennis.‚  The world of video games has a dynamic duo as well featuring Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell in a clash for the highest score in the original arcade Donkey Kong.

Wiebe will be making his fifth try at the record this summer at E3, with the proceedings officially refereed by Twin Galaxies, the world record governing body, and will be televised by gaming channel G4 TV.

Wiebe’s original quest to have his score recognized was well chronicled in the documentary “A Fistful of Quarters” but has since been broken by; you guessed it, Billy Mitchell.

This won’t be the head to head matchup enthusiasts have been calling for, but nonetheless very exciting and just another reason to tune in and follow E3 this summer.

via IGN