Gender-Bending Donkey Kong Hack Makes The Leap To The Arcade!

April 16th, 2013 - Spurred on by Mike Mika's recent "Pauline Edition" remix of the NES version of Donkey Kong - which casts Pauline as the hero and Mario as the damsel in distress - Clay Cowgill, co-owner of Portland's Ground Kontrol arcade, has successfully reworked the original arcade version to do the same.

Like Mika, Cowgill produced a detailed report describing every step of the process (which also happens to be a fascinating look into the inner workings of the game code and the hardware on which it runs).

Freshly-reprogrammed EPROMs containing Cowgill's adaptation have already been successfully installed into a vintage Donkey Kong boardset and the game is soon to be up and running "on location" for the public's enjoyment at Ground Kontrol.

All that's missing now is the new paint job and art set that was Photoshop-prototyped by This Old Game two weeks ago:

"Back-to-Back Benziger" Snatches Another Last-Minute Victory

March 24th, 2013 - The win was narrower this time around, but Donkey Kong phenom Ross Benziger cut through the field for the second time in a row to successfully defend his title as the king of the Kong Off wildcard division in the second installment of Eric Tessler and John Salter's Wildcard Rematch tournament.

Donkey Kong Tournament This Saturday: The Wildcard Rematch #2

Ross Benziger Clobbers The Wildcard Rematch Tournament

January 21st 2013 - Ross "Von Dummpenstein" Benziger didn't even sit down for his first game of Saturday's online-only Wildcard Rematch Tournament until the 22nd hour of the 24-hour competition.

With only enough time for a single full game, Benziger had his work cut out for him: after the day's play, Jeff Wolfe's strong top score of 869,700 was the mark to beat, nobody had yet claimed the "first kill screen" bounty, and Eric Tessler's "beat my 900,500" bounty was still on the table as well.

Two hours? No problem! Ross got to work.

The Kong Off 2 Wildcard Rematch... TODAY on Twitch TV!

January 19th, 2013, 12:00 AM PST - Two days... more than a dozen talented Kongers... but only four machines.

It just wasn't enough to go around!

This was the situation last November as an unexpected number of wildcard competitors crowded the 1up to take their crack at the Kong Off 2 leaderboard. With only four machines set aside for them, an elimination format was, by necessity, hastily devised. Only the best scores were able to move on to Day 2.

Lemay Breaks the Record... Almost

Three Champions: Present, Past, and Future(?)

January 12th, 2013 - Just over 24 hours ago, Vincent Lemay scored 1,135,900 points on a "classic red" Donkey Kong arcade machine in an incredible 2 hour, 58 minute performance that officially places Lemay second on the all-time scoreboard... and only 2,700 points behind Hank Chien's 1st-place score of 1,138,600.

Lemay has been holed up with the machine for over a week in a back office at the 1up arcade/bar (Twin Galaxies' new headquarters) in Denver, Colorado on an extended multi-day campaign of world record attempts.

Lemay World Record Attempt Underway

January 3rd, 2013 - Vincent Lemay is currently in the midst of a multi-day Donkey Kong world record attempt at The 1up barcade in Denver, Colorado.

There wasn't much to see in today's action, and I mean that literally—a very blurry webcam made Lemay's gameplay nearly impossible to follow, but this issue will reportedly be resolved tomorrow.

Vincent himself posted an update on his progress to Facebook:

Starting the New Year (and Finishing the Last)

January 1st, 2013 - I try to keep "meta-blogging" to a minimum, and we'll get back to Donkey Kong shortly, but there's now a build-up of matters that need to be addressed.

Kong Off 2 Media Round-Up

Here is a selection of media coverage on the Kong Off 2, listed in order of publication/broadcast.

Congratulations Jeff Willms, Kong Off 2 Champion!

Congratulations to Kong Off 2 champion Jeff Willms, who, along with second-place finisher Dean Saglio, proved that MAME players can not only adapt, but dominate utterly!

Willms has, until this weekend, played Donkey Kong exclusively on a PC. If anyone holds any remaining doubts that the game is emulated perfectly by the MAME software, or whether MAME-based players merit the respect of arcade machine players, they've been seriously challenged by this historic performance.

In my pre-event predictions, I had pegged Willms as a contender but not a front-runner, not because of any doubts as to his ability or understanding of the game, but because I had no clue as to how he would cope with the live environment and all the visual and ergonomic differences of an arcade cabinet.

When a contestant is competing at his first arcade event, and has literally never played on a machine before, only a fool or a psychic would venture to say "that's the guy!", no matter how good we know he is on MAME.

The photo above is my favorite image from the tournament, showing Willms at work, honoring the Maple Leaf (thanks to Michael Groesbeck for the pic). He made his country proud, and for that matter, this country too!

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Here is a video of Jeff Willms' achieving the score, securing victory, and a little crowdsurfing for good measure. Thanks to Mario Ruiz for this (and for actually being named Mario!)