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The King Of Kong
Reviewed by Rich Drees
Perhaps since almost immediately after the beginning of athletic
competition, there have been stories of great competitors, those who
fought the odds and overcame great obstacles to become champion in
their chosen field. Even so, it may come as a bit of a surprise to
find out that even in today’s environment where something as basic
as Rock, Paper, Scissors has an official governing body, that there
exists an organization and an entire sub-culture devoted to video
game record keeping. It’s into this world that The King Of Kong
takes us, detailing a recent struggle for the world record of the
classic video arcade game Donkey Kong.
Donkey Kong is
described by its adherents in the film as one of the most brutal of
arcade games, where the average game runs less than a minute. The
player controls a construction worker who must climb a series of
girders and ladders to rescue a fair maiden from the game’s titular
giant monkey. Along the way, the player must dodge rolling barrels,
fire balls and, on the more advance levels, deadly, bouncing
springs. The world’s record for high score on the game was set back
during the initial video arcade boom of the early 1980s by Billy
Mitchell, a record which remained unbroken for a solid two decades.
Enter
challenger Steve Wiebe, a laid off Boeing engineer who decided to
break the world record for the Donkey Kong game as a way to pass his
new found free time. In his Washington state garage, Wiebe applies a
keen analytic mind – his wife thinks he may have a touch of autism
when it comes to his concentration for problem solving – and
eye-hand coordination developed as a student athlete and drummer to
the point where he becomes a serious contender to break Mitchell’s
record.
The King Of
Kong starts off presenting both competitors in a positive light.
Wiebe is an easy going family man while we see Mitchell securing a
Q-Bert machine for an 80-year old woman so she can continue to
practice to defend her record. However, as the film progresses and
the various people in record keeping organization Twin Galaxies’
rather closed community begin to react to Wiebe’s seeming intrusion
into their world, it is hard not to shift sympathies to underdog
Wiebe. The end result leaves one to not help but wonder if their due
diligence in verifying or debunking Wiebe’s record breaking attempts
is more than a little fueled by their friendship with Mitchell.
King Of Kong never belittles or looks down on its subjects and
any negative impressions anyone makes is strictly their own doing. |
