Now watching...

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters!

Last night, the family and I watched The King of Kong, the unlikely story of "bad guy" Billy Mitchell and "good guy" Steve Wiebe competing for the world's record on the arcade classic, Donkey Kong. The reason I call it unlikely is that it's amazing that a film would be made about such an esoteric topic.

The movie struck a fine balance between humor, drama, campiness, and human interest, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Naturally, considering the subject matter, I'm more than a little biased, but critics nationwide gave the film high marks. Check out some of these reviews here.

Much has been made of the historical inaccuracies in the film, and you can read about these on the Twin Galaxies website, which tracks video game high scores.

Here's Twin Galaxies' Walter Day, who was featured prominently in the film. I took this picture at the 2007 Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas (he asked to hold my book while I took a photo).



I met Billy Mitchell at the 2003 Classic Gaming Expo and was lucky enough to catch him playing a round of Donkey Kong.