New King of Kong Hated Donkey Kong, Reveals Tips

Late to the party on this, but it needs to be in the GamerCrave record that Hank Chien of New York is the new King of Kong. His score of 1,061,700 points in the arcade version of Donkey Kong tops the efforts of both Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe, as documented in the film “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.” The game ended on Donkey Kong’s “kill screen,” which prevents any further play, so Chien, a 35 year-old plastic surgeon, was simply more efficient in his 2 hours and 35 minutes of play than his competitors.

Twin Galaxies, the official world record-keeping group for video games, interviewed Chien and dug up a couple of nuggets. First, Chien didn’t even like Donkey Kong until he saw the documentary in 2008. I had only played one game of Donkey Kong in my entire life, and that that was in 2006,” he said. “I remember not being able to pass the first board and thinking, ‘this game stinks.’”

And now a couple tips from the master:

First, getting the bottom hammer on the barrels boards is absolutely crucial for breaking 1M. Not just getting it either, but knowing when to get it and how to steer the rest of the barrels down after you get it. But what really pushed me to the world record is what I call “barrel grouping” and running down ladders to re-jump groups. You get more points by jumping barrels in groups than you would individually and you can run down ladders to re-jump the same group and get even more points. You have to get good at recognizing when the barrels will group and when it’s safe to run down ladders. You can do that anywhere on the screen, but I find near the top of the screen to be the safest. Even there, it’s not risk free.

How hard could it be? [via Twin Galaxies]