Over a Barrel

I get 286,000 on my second game and enter my initials, which puts me at No. 4 on the high-score screen. As soon as I'm done, another guy sits down. I watch for a few minutes, enough to tell that he's an expert. His name is Eric, he's from Seattle, and his all-time best is 490,000. Yes, he saw "SDK" earlier. He overheard SDK telling someone that his best game was more than 900,000.

The next day, I pull into Funspot's parking lot. It's noon, bright and sunny, and I'm just in time for the tournament's opening. Walking into an arcade is like walking into a cave. The tournament is being held in a separate room within Funspot, into which 27 classic arcade games have been moved, including five or six pinball machines. Other than two featured games this year -- Defender and its sequel, Stargate -- none of the selected games were known to participants until today. Players have four days -- today through Sunday -- to do their best on these games, and their high scores will be recorded. In addition to competing for bragging rights on individual games, players can also submit cumulative high scores in video and pinball, so a champion in each category will be crowned.

Of the 27 games lined up against one wall of the tournament room, more than half are already being played by pale, highly focused guys wearing name badges. Apparently the tournament has started without any fanfare. Official referees are sitting in chairs behind the players, spaced along the row, one referee for every five or six cabinets. As I pay the $30 entry fee and pick up my badge, I scan the games. Donkey Kong isn't among them. Most are unknown to me, but I was good at a few. I always found Defender and Stargate impossible, and I know better than to attempt any of the pinball machines.

I walk up to a game called Cheyenne, at which I used to be an expert. Amazingly, the referee sitting behind me is an adorable, college-age blonde. She glances at me with the detached, indifferent air of a professional referee, then looks away. Not much chance of impressing a girl that young and cute, particularly when you're a graying 40-year-old with a name tag bearing the logo of the International Classic Video Game & Pinball Tournament. Sighing, I wrap my arms around Cheyenne's 1850s rifle-styled light gun. Last time I played this game I was in the lobby of my Syracuse University dorm, and likely stoned.

The feel of the game comes back to me, but not quickly enough, and my score is worthless. According to the rules, you can play any game as often as you want and have a ref verify any score you want to submit. But I don't want to play again. So I leave the tournament room and wind my way through the general arcade, toward Donkey Kong.

SDK has struck again, and according to today's high score list, he reached 895,400 and level 22. Known as the "kill screen," it's where Donkey Kong's programming fails, and the game crashes. That puts him on the level of champs Mitchell and Wiebe. I put in a token and struggle to 185,000, which doesn't even allow me the privilege of entering my initials. I try again and barely break 220,000. My wrist hurts from pressing the jump button. I don't want to control barrels anymore or goad fireballs into climbing ladders. Ineptitude aside, I'm tired of Donkey Kong, and I realize there's not a game in this entire arcade that I really want to play. I'm alone in the resort town of Laconia, N.H., surrounded by the games of my youth, with nothing to do. I try my luck at Cheyenne one more time, but the 24-year-old light gun is on the fritz. I wander around a bit more, then head back to the hotel.

From the Guinness World Records Web Site, June 2008:

Guinness World Records Takes Over Funspot

After four furious days of classic gaming, gamers from across the globe achieved record after record at the Tenth Annual Classic Videogame and Pinball Tournament at Funspot, the world's largest arcade, in Laconia, New Hampshire, USA . . .

. . . Scott Kessler, a newcomer to the Donkey Kong scene, having only started playing the game last August, became the third person ever to achieve a kill screen in the classic game, essentially beating the game by progressing further than the programmers ever thought any person could. While Scott's score did not set a new world record, the gaming world definitely has a new Donkey Kong contender in its midst . . .

It's maybe two weeks after returning from New Hampshire that I try Donkey Kong again. I continue to play on and off, though my kitchen is now clean and the floors have been vacuumed. I've recently been distracted by other, more important pursuits, like guiding the character Niko Bellic through his rising criminal career in Grand Theft Auto IV. But a couple of times a week, I'll fire up MAME and see how well I can do on Donkey Kong. I still haven't come close to Mitchell, Wiebe or SDK, or even matched my own miracle game.

But I did submit a MAME-based recording of my 510,500-point game to Twin Galaxies, after seeing that it had a separate MAME category. The score suggests that I'm the eighth-greatest Donkey Kong player of all time on MAME; or, if you're generous enough to transfer the score to the arcade cabinet, the 10th.

I'll never be King of Kong. But, according to the official records, I am one of the top 10 Donkey Kong players of all time. It won't get me a date. It won't even earn me the respect of my peers. But the skinny 13-year-old who struggled to get his first glimpse of the game back in 1981 would have thought it was pretty cool.

Josh Criss is a communications/multimedia specialist in Arlington. He can be reached at 20071@washpost.com.