KING OF KONG JR: WIEBE TAKES DK JR CROWN AHEAD OF E3 DK CHALLENGE
If you’ve seen Seth Gordon’s unforgettable documentary King of Kong (and if you haven’t, close your browser now and stream it via Netflix), you’ll know just what’s at stake here.
Ahead of his upcoming attempt to officially claim the Donkey Kong crown at this year’s E3, Twin Galaxies has just announced that documentary star Steve Wiebe has warmed up by claiming a world record score on its sequel, Donkey Kong Jr, with 1,139,800 points.
The score not only puts him ahead of Ike Hall, who took the DK Jr crown last year, but also of Billy Mitchell himself — Wiebe’s rival in the film — who still holds the contentious first-place record in DK proper and set the original DK Jr record in 1983.
Wiebe’s DK rematch will take place on June 2nd at E3 in Los Angeles, and will be broadcast live via G4.
Steve Wiebe Takes Donkey Kong Junior World Record With Score of 1,139,800 [Twin Galaxies]
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THE SOUNDS OF THE SOUNDS OF VINTAGE ARCADES: MP3 SAMPLES FROM 1982-1988
In case you missed it earlier today on the Mother Boing, Mark dug up this Classic Arcade Sounds collection, whose owner explains:
We recorded our video game experiences from 1982 until 1988 in a variety of locations on the east coast. Most of the recordings come from Ithaca, NY, Albany, NY and Ocean City, MD. Other locations include Lancaster, PA, Falmouth, MA, Rehoboth Beach, DE and Key West, FL.
Luckily I stored all fourteen audio tapes in a safe place and rediscovered them when I moved the rest of my stuff out of my parents house in 1997. In the last several years I digitized these nostalgic recordings to preserve and share them.Experience the magic and the wonder of the early years of coin-op video games. Hear the classic arcade ambience like you haven’t heard it in over a quarter of a century! The blend of several video games being played simultaneously, the kids yelling and the quarters clanking. We will never hear such beautiful chaos quite the same way again….
It’s already pre-faded/corrupted for you, just run it through a bit of tape delay and stick a nice beat behind it, and you’ve got an instant Boards of Canada-esque nostalgic album.
Classic Arcade Sounds [coinopvideogames, via BB]
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PINBALLHD: THE 1080P DIGITAL PINBALL CAB
Straight from the digital hardcore pinball underground: HyperPin forum admin BadBoyBill shows off his latest “side project,” a supersized dual LCD monitor cab-in-the-making that takes 3D pinball sim Future Pinball to some mind-boggling new level.
Announcing HyperPin Digital Pinball Frontend [via Ideaity, thanks Rob!]
Previously:
Pinball designer Lawlor on the kinetics of the silver ball – Offworld
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UP FOR BID: A POSTHUMOUS LOOK INSIDE MICHAEL JACKSON’S NEVERLAND ARCADE
As mentioned by the Mother Boing last week, Julien’s Auctions is selling off 2,000 of Michael Jackson’s curiosities in April, including, of course, a wide variety of arcade games and amusements. Julien’s has the full lineup of cabinets cataloged, including vintage miscellany like Dig Dug, console demo-stations from the 3DO to the Nintendo 64, Dance Dance Revolution (obviously), and even a life-sized statue of Tomb Raider‘s Lara Croft.
But curiously, and has probably been pointed out a million times before, not a single cab of Jackson’s ownarcade debut Moonwalker (at least, not for sale).
Michael Jackson arcade auction [Julien’s Auctions, via Siliconera]
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THE GAMES OF TOMORROW, YESTERDAY: 1982’S ‘GAME PARLOR OF THE FUTURE’
The Paleofuture blog, dedicated entirely to looking at the future of predictive articles past, found this feature from a 1982 issue of ‘Electronic Games’ (the first U.S. all-games magazine) which does a surprisingly accurate job of describing the developments that would come in the following two decades.
Though it wasn’t quite prescient enough to see games moving into homes and the subsequent quiet death of the arcade itself, below are some of the choicest quotes, with links to the wishlist items that would essentially come true:
Interactive fiction should continue to do well, as will role-playing games that involve the arcader in ever more personal ways (such as Prisoner and Network). Players will be able to assume the role of a detective, questioning the suspects in a murder case with full audio/visual accompaniment…
Look for arcades to be constructed along the lines of big-budget science fiction movie sets, with special effects a major attraction of the games. For example, there might be chairs that rock back and forth, swing from side to side or swivel a full 360 degrees…
The arcade games of the next century may not only be activated by voice command, but conceivably even by thought – at least in a sense. Something akin to galvanic skin-monitoring devices attached to the gamer’s arm, perhaps in the form of a bracelet, could measure emotional response and even act as a triggering device.
Game Parlor of the Future (1982) [Paleofuture, via Matteo Bittanti]
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SURE PLAYS A MEAN MARBLE: MARBLE MADNESS FINISHED IN 2:30
In other morning video madness: the only thing more amazing than this Marble Madness expert play video is the champ’s seemingly flailing double-palm whack technique (the original niconico video’s tags include ‘bloody muscle pain’ for good reason).
People are already comparing it to TGM HOLiC’s unbelievable Tetris: The Grand Master 3 video which — if you haven’t seen it already — will leave you speechless, particularly when he continues to play with the fallen blocks turned invisible.
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PINBALL DESIGNER LAWLOR ON THE KINETICS OF THE SILVER BALL
Speaking of lost arts, GameSetWatch has a great interview with pinball designer Pat Lawlor (Funhouse, The Addams Family) that veers comfortably wildly around all topics of the modern pinball industry, but is at its best when discussing just how pin-boards are designed — a topic closely related to videogame design but so tactile at its core that it slightly boggles my mind:
There are obviously many aspects involved in kinetics. Every designer has differing goals for the “feel” of the game. Usually these goals are a result of the kinds of games the designers like
personally.Things to consider are, in no particular order:
1) Middle shots are easier for beginners.
2) How to mix stop and go shots with nice return flow shots.
3) How fast is the overall game? Very fast games are very difficult for beginners.
4) When a shot is missed, what happens to the ball? Is it a bad, clunky thing? Does the ball come back in my face?
5) Are these shots just “there,” or do they represent something from the theme?
Hit the link for more on the inescapable draw of wolloping Funhouse’s ‘Rudy’ head, and why pinball has “not adequately adapted to the 21st century.”
GameSetInterview: ‘Rudy’s Father Speaks – The Pat Lawlor Interview’ [GameSetWatch]
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CULT KOREAN RHYTHM GAME DJ MAX TECHNIKA COMING TO DS/IPHONE
With the American arcade version still yet not made it to a location near me, I’m still not entirely convinced by the idea of PM Studios’ touch-screen rhythm game DJ Max Technika, its gameplay (which you can see here) on beat, but so seemingly divorced from the music itself.
It quickly conjures up happy memories of iNiS’s Nintendo DS underdog favorite Elite Beat Agents/Ouendan, but it’s not entirely clear how compelling the game will be played so straight, without the peripheral connection of your actions to comic vignettes that give EBA its vitality.
It might be sooner than we think to find out, though, in a new interview with Siliconera, PM Studios producer Michael Yum says the company is at work bringing Technika not only to the DS (with ‘secret’ DSi features), but to the iPhone as well, a device it looks almost tailor-made for.
PM Studios Discuss DJ Max Technika, DS Port, And Pentavision’s Elusive Xbox 360 Game [Siliconera]
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