The Eight Ball [8Ball]

Wikipedia Definition: A kill screen is a stage or level in a video game (often an arcade game) 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.

Programmers back in the day were so limited by the amount of memory they had at their disposal that they would design levels in isolation of the whole game and test them but may never have actually played all the levels of the game from start to finish so would only ASSUME that there would be enough memory for someone to actually complete the game.  I find it so amusing that so many games were originally designed assuming that no one could ever possibly finish them so there was no need to provide a proper end point!

Brian Kuh tells everyone at Funspot arcade to witness Steve reaching a Kill Screen in Donkey Kong. This truly is the epitomy of geek.

Which brings me to my first film review!  Go and watch, “King of Kong : A Fistful of Quarters“.  It’s the story about the world record holders for the classic Arcade Games in particular “Donkey Kong”.  This game is so tricky and complex you need to be a very special kind of individual to even make it to level 8.  This is a brilliant story about the record holder, Billy Mitchell, who is a COMPLETE geek, the biggest computer geek in the world with the most inflated ego you could imagine.  He seriously thinks he is perfect.  He proclaims throughout the film that a record is not a record unless it is publically scrutinised, if it isn’t, it means nothing and he would settle for nothing less yet his Donkey Kong high score was NOT produced in any kind of public forum.

A young man called Steve Wiebe manages to beat Billy’s world record but because it was not done in public it was not recognised.  The governing body of the worlds high scores (which Billy is a member of! Biased much?) also invalided Steve’s score because it was done on a machine that was provided by a player who had a beef with Billy Mitchell so they claimed the board could have been modified to make it easier to play!

It is a brilliant story about the little guy trying to be recognised as the best, up against the World Number 1 who has the governing body of the Worlds Top Scores eating out of his hand.  Can Steve beat Billy’s score publically to claim his rightful place as the Donkey Kong champion of the world?

Anyone that has ever been interested in gaming or gets nostalgic about the old Arcade Games should watch this film! 4/5 Stars!