sukimon

This past weekend, I got to see King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a documentary focused on two men, Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell, and their efforts to get the world record high score for the classic arcade game, Donkey Kong.

Although there was a lot of retro history and footage, especially of the Classic Videogame & Pinball Championships in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, King of Kong was surprisingly accessible to the viewer uneducated in video game lore. Love, envy, disappointment, perseverance, redemption, King of Kong had it all, and by the end of the film, everyone in the theater wanted to see how things turn out for Wiebe and Mitchell. It’s like watching an early Wrestlemania event with a side of Rudy.

Currently, King of Kong is on a limited distribution schedule, so watch this film while you can, or petition your local theater to pick it up.

King of Kong official website
FAQ on King of Kong (NOTE: contains spoilers)
Twin Galaxies – The Official Arcade Scorekeepers

Has it really been almost six months since my last post? Oui vey.

Yeah, the Sukimon crew went underground during that time, to tend to various projects (coaching high school tennis, switching jobs, looking for a new place to live, bought a car, painting a house, etc.). But now I’m back and ready to post… stuff I should have uploaded months ago. Anyways, check out the link below for now:

Atari Flashback: Imagic Documentary

IFAIK, originally posted at the fantastic AtariAge, it’s an early-1980s PBS(?) documentary on Imagic, one of the most successful game developers (the others being Atari and Activision. duh) of its time. In addition to seeing pre-release game footage of Atlantis, it’s also interesting to point out that the video was produced just before the Big Video Game Crash.

All I know is that, based on watching the documentary itself, it was on a show called, “Enterprise.” Please comment if you have any information regarding this documentary.