King of Kong (documentary)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Kong:_A_Fistful_of_Quarters
American wins race to video-game 'Holy Grail' '80s classic Pac-Man yields a perfect score
Associated Press
423 words
19 July 1999
The Globe and Mail
Metro
A14
English
"All material copyright Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. "
Cooper City, Fla. -- Baseball has produced 14 perfect games this century in the major leagues, with David Cone's gem in New York yesterday. Now, after 19 years, Pac-Man has its first.
Florida resident Billy Mitchell, 34, become the first recorded master of the video-arcade classic when he posted a score of 3,333,360 during the July 4 holiday weekend at a New Hampshire arcade.
"This was the race to the Holy Grail," said Mr. Mitchell, who runs two restaurants in southern Florida and markets a brand of hot sauce.
Mr. Mitchell fulfilled his quest to beat several rivals to the perfect game, including two Canadians, according to a press release issued by Walter Day, chief scorekeeper for the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Score Board, based in Fairfield, Iowa. In May, Rick Fothergill of Hamilton, Ont., fell just 90 points short of the perfect game.
No one ever had played a perfect Pac-Man game before, said Mr. Day, editor of Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records. Ten billion Pac-Man games have been played worldwide, game experts estimated.
To attain Pac-Man perfection, one must navigate the yellow pie-shaped title character so it gobbles each and every dot, enemy blue ghost, energizer and fruit on the game's 256 levels.
Mr. Mitchell accomplished the feat during a two-day quest at Funspot Family Entertainment Center in Weirs Beach, N.H. That's the site of the Twin Galaxies International Classic Video Game and Pinball Tournament each May, where Mr. Fothergill set his record in May.
Starting anew each time he made a mistake, Mr. Mitchell finally found his groove in a game that lasted almost six hours.
"At about 1.9 million [points], I went off pattern," he said. "I said to myself, 'I'm losing it here. I didn't come this far to lose.' I started talking out loud to myself, talking my way through it. I was able to cheat death, so to speak. It was flawless the rest of the way."
Though hardly a household name, Mr. Mitchell is a high-roller among video-game and pinball players, whose numbers worldwide are estimated at 500 million.
At age 17, Mr. Mitchell set the world record in another video game, Donkey Kong, a title he still holds. Today, he holds the records for Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.