Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:37 am Post subject: The King of Kong movie
Saw this great movie last night on TV, all about the world records for Donkey Kong and the politics involved in the judgement. You'll probably be able to find it in YouTube.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...f_Quarters _________________
Commodore 8bit Designs - C8D << All projects available for download now.
I've finally stopped buying Commodore gear.
Great movie. Saw it when it first came out and it helped convince me to get a Galaga standup machine (my favorite arcade game). I also hold several world records on Twin Galaxies, mostly for NES games, but also a few c64 titles like Ghosts n Goblins, Drelbs, and Moon Patrol.
Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Age: 38 Posts: 1812 Location: Australia
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:15 am Post subject:
Warning: Spoilers in this rant, so go watch the film first if you do not want it ruined.
Thanks for the heads up on this. I really enjoyed every second of it. Billy Mitchell seems like a manipulative person to be around with. From the Wikipedia article Billy apparently excuses himself by saying that "he had not played video games for "more than a year", and that the filmmakers had not given him enough advance warning to train for a public record-breaking attempt". It is my assumption however, that the documentary was filmed over a period spanning several months up to a year. I am sure he was notified by his cronies that a) his Donkey Kong record was under threat, b) that there's a film crew recording his ordeals, c) that there are live events in which he can compete against Steve and d) Steve sent him several messages by phone to ask them to play together. Granted we mostly get one side of the story, but Billy did not even acknowledge Stevie when he walked in the arcade. He could have said at least a hi and a friendly statement saying, I can't do it now, but rest assured whatever you get I'll break your record.
Anyway, he seems like a perfect nemesis and an antagonist in the film. He was big on words, seemed manipulative, wielded power but never lived up to his words in the film. Like it was said above, some details might have been embellished, but most documentaries choose sides and provide mostly one side of the story.
Anyway, great film. I can't wait to see it again. _________________
Stingray wrote:
So no one understands exactly how the C64 works as it is reversed engineered Alien technology via the Nazi Vrill project, Project Paper Clip and the TOI project.
Joined: 01 Dec 2011 Age: 37 Posts: 53 Location: Pennsylvania
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:29 pm Post subject:
Really good documentary.
Saw it about 4 years ago and it had such a profound effect for me as a gamer after seeing it. Example: 2 days after seeing the documentary, I finally got past stage 0 on Galaga (fast fire) for the first time. I've also gotten better at Donkey Kong because of The King Of Kong.
There's also Chasing Ghosts: Beyond The Arcade, and High Score (it's about Bill Carlton going for the Missile Command world record).
I actually hadn't heard about this movie until someone recommended it to me a couple of months ago and I had no idea there were so much prestige and 'games' going along with the records. The way the movie is cut makes it a very interesting watch. The consequences it had for me was trying out the Donkey Kong-versions on the C64, but I simply didn't think any of them were appealing enough compared to the arcade version.
I watched this film the other day. My first reaction was "GOSH! ARE THESE GUYS FOR REAL!?!" - but I couldn't stop thinking of the C64 SCENE of today...
This "Billy" character could almost be some scene-moderator -
obsessed with rules and scared of the competition...
But I guess this kind of ultra-nerds is only fiction...
_________________
All I want - All I need... Is to see my enemies bleed !!!
Joined: 10 Nov 2007 Age: 41 Posts: 1026 Location: Norway
Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 11:29 am Post subject:
Zaz_cag wrote:
Really good documentary.
(snip-snap)
........ and High Score (it's about Bill Carlton going for the Missile Command world record).
Thanks for the tip about High Score. I had not seen it prior to you mentioned it here. I know it's not new (mid 200x) but it's really good. I felt kind of sorry for the chap - but was kind of thrilled for him at the end - that dude can roll!
Missile Command got to be one of the hardest games to compete in - if you play it in competition mode (one credit, no bonus cities). My God those missiles comes fast in the later levels. "Spray and Pray" as the one player called it.
SPOILER ALERT:
Too bad he never got around to delete any of the higher scores. It must be so freakin' irritating to experience the hardware fails on you for the n'th time, playing for 28 hours and it resets. Not once, but like every time! It was not his game to beat I'd say. The gaming gods choose someone else to rule that game.
Bill's "technician" felt really bad about that. And that scam company who sold him that "fail free" board - should have been put on the spot in front of the camera. I would have made them eat the circuits of the board if I were Bill!
Fun to see mr. I-Business-Man talking about when he set the record of Missile Command - some 30 years ago - and he only remember it as a blur... Then falling asleep. I suspect that winner used drugs! Nice to see he had joined the "darkside" of corporate HQ - NOT! He had not played a game since the 80's by the looks of things. Nice of him to offer his non-memory of the event thou.
Good that Atari Age had full coverage of the game scores back then, in the times before BBS and INTERNET. I now begin to grasp how BIG Atari actually was in the USA - from the mid 70s and up to mid 80s. HUGE!
They must have failed HARD; from having almost monopoly of the games and hardware market, to almost bankruptcy - then slowly fading out by the mid 90s until someone bought their NAME for a buck. Blaming Nintendo is not fair, ATARI must have messed up this on their own. Failing to adjust.
I would recommend another awesome gaming movie "GET LAMP". It's been posted onto the forum before, but such a nice movie can never be mentioned too much or often.
The same person also made a great movie prior to Get Lamp, called BBS or something. It's about the C64 too in a small way, but mostly about the scene around BBS and the software & hardware used. Some really great interviews going on in that flick.
Check YouTube to find Get Lamp (probably the other too), but I would recommend people to buy the DVD's as they are FILLED with extras. You will not regret buying them.
I now begin to grasp how BIG Atari actually was in the USA - from the mid 70s and up to mid 80s. HUGE!
In the late 70s and early to mid 80s, the name Atari was virtually synonymous with "video games". All you had to say was "We have an Atari" and people knew exactly what you meant. Even though Atari also created the 5200 and later the 7800, Jaguar and XEGS, the 2600 is the system that they're most known for. That and arcade games. Even today, if you say the word Atari to anyone over 30, they'll almost certainly think of the Atari 2600.
The consoles were sold in department stores as well as toy stores, and the games were sold practically everywhere. Even drug stores and corner stores would sometimes have Atari games for sale. It was unusual to watch a TV show and not see at least one ad for an Atari game. The Christmas catalogs from mail order companies like Montgomery Ward had large video game sections. Colombia House started a video game of the month club, similar to their album of the month club for music. There were multiple game magazines like Joystik, Electronic Games, etc.
Other game systems got their share of attention too, like the Intellivision and Colecovision, but the Atari 2600 was the first cartridge based system to really become popular. Also, as far as I know, it's the first system to be supported by third-party developers.
hbhzth wrote:
They must have failed HARD; from having almost monopoly of the games and hardware market, to almost bankruptcy - then slowly fading out by the mid 90s until someone bought their NAME for a buck. Blaming Nintendo is not fair, ATARI must have messed up this on their own. Failing to adjust.
It was a combination of things. A lot of companies flooded the market with cheap, lame video games, which gave the impression that all video games were turning into crap. After getting burned by a few bad games, people were less willing to shell out money for the more expensive, higher quality games.
Atari themselves put out some crappy games, like Pac-Man and E.T. Which they had paid big money to license.
The Atari 5200 system never really caught on that well. People disliked the non-auto-centering analog joysticks, and the promised adapter to play Atari 2600 games took longer than expected to show up and when it did, it wouldn't work on the original 4-port models without a hardware modification. Also, while the 5200 was mostly based on the Atari 8-bit line of computers, it wasn't directly compatible with them.
The Atari 7800 got shelved when Jack Tramiel was ousted from Commodore and took over Atari. In fact, he basically canceled all game development to concentrate on computers. The 7800 was pretty much just dumped on the market to give Atari a cash boost. The systems had been ready for shipment before the crash and had just been sitting in a warehouse until Nintendo revived the market. It was more advanced than the previous systems and could rival the NES, but it only had a small library of games and most people hated the included joysticks (although standard Atari sticks worked as well). It did play Atari 2600 games right out of the box, but most people were looking for more advanced games by then.
The XEGS was basically an Atari 8-bit computer without the keyboard. The world was moving to 16-bit systems and beyond, so an 8-bit system wasn't all that appealing to most people.
The Jaguar was pretty advanced, but its game library was small, the controller was huge and it was overshadowed by the Sony Playstation just a short time later.
The Atari Lynx was more advanced than the Gameboy, but it was much larger and went through batteries faster.
Then there was the Atari ST line of computers, which really only succeeded because the built-in MIDI port made them popular with musicians. The Amiga kicked its butt in pretty much every other respect. After an initial surge of game development for both systems, most companies shifted their support to the Amiga.
Of course neither line could compete with the rise of IBM clones and MS-DOS/Windows, which spelled the end of just about every other home computer line, other than the Mac.
Joined: 10 Nov 2007 Age: 41 Posts: 1026 Location: Norway
Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 2:36 am Post subject:
Thanks Rekrul, for that sum up of Atari! Being a little to young for the 2600 and that I lived in Scandinavia, the Commodore became my generations first computers and gaming platform.
Not until '92-93 did Nintendo get established over here as a gaming platform for the masses. By then it was the SNES, which could compete with the quality of 80's arcade standard. Great graphics and 16-bits digitized music. And a controller that was considered good and could be used by almost everyone.
The NES did not get much of a foothold here and it was axed to less than £50+games, but nobody wanted them any more due to the much better SNES. Up until then C64 and Amiga saw to that the NES never sold much.
Too bad Commodore always was too late with all their consoles, from C64GS to CDTV to CD32. They could have all had a much better range if they had been sold differently.
The C64GS came 2-3 years too late. The CDTV was a bit too late too and lack of software made especially for it, bad marketing and too little budget - compared to the sales potential it had.
Least and worst it was with the CD32 - an outstanding product, which could have given Nintendo, SEGA and even the later Sony PS competition. IF it had gotten serious backing from Commodore. They could have sponsored gaming companies with dev kits and ideas for getting the most out of the hardware. Had a good in-house production of games and programs. It could easy be made into a working computer, but very few explored this option. It should have been a modem or network solution for it. External HDs.
I think Commodore got so much for free with the success of the C64 and early Amiga - that they left everything since that up to the market - hoping people were going to buy it nonetheless. It ain't so - which they soon found out.
I'd guess you are from the US, Rekrul? Did (or was) the CD32 sell in the US at all - or was it an European thing basically?
Too bad Commodore always was too late with all their consoles, from C64GS to CDTV to CD32. They could have all had a much better range if they had been sold differently.
That was the main problem with Commodore, they were always late with their upgrades. AGA was released a full five years after IBM clones had VGA. By then, clone systems had SVGA. Too few Amiga models had hard drives and when they did, they were usually more expensive than the equivalent clone system. Also, accelerators were expensive, compared to a 386 or even 486.
hbhzth wrote:
I think Commodore got so much for free with the success of the C64 and early Amiga - that they left everything since that up to the market - hoping people were going to buy it nonetheless. It ain't so - which they soon found out.
Exactly, they were content to just sit back and do nothing while other computer makers were hard at work creating new systems and standards.
hbhzth wrote:
I'd guess you are from the US, Rekrul? Did (or was) the CD32 sell in the US at all - or was it an European thing basically?
It wasn't officially sold here in the US. Legal troubles prevented it from being sold here directly. However they did make an NTSC version for use in Canada and some of those units found their way to the US. It was never very common here though. Neither was the CDTV. Or the 3DO or CD-I for that matter. They were available, but hardly anyone had them.
The first CD based console to really become popular was the Playstation.
Joined: 29 Nov 2008 Age: 42 Posts: 735 Location: Louisville KY : Last C64 Game Played - Bomber
Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 7:43 pm Post subject:
Rekrul wrote:
Too few Amiga models had hard drives and when they did, they were usually more expensive than the equivalent clone system. Also, accelerators were expensive, compared to a 386 or even 486.
True. The GVP A530 HD w/ accelerator for the Amiga (240 meg) was around $1700-1800 when it was released. My 486/33 complete system with monitor was $1400 with similar HD right around the time it was released. _________________
Member of Louisville KY area C64 BBSes
Handle "Gyro" or "Gyromite" 1986-1993
True. The GVP A530 HD w/ accelerator for the Amiga (240 meg) was around $1700-1800 when it was released. My 486/33 complete system with monitor was $1400 with similar HD right around the time it was released.
I have the GVP 500 unit without the accelerator in it. With a 100MB hard drive, I think the price was about $500. It had been out for a while though.
I was always disappointed that you were limited to 2, 4 or 8MB of memory and there was no way to add it incrementally up to 8. You basically had to add it all at once, which was like another $400.
I have to say though, it's very well made. I plugged my SCSI Zip drive into the back and it instantly recognized disk changes which allowed me to use it like a giant floppy. With the A2091 card in a 2000, I had to use a third-party program to change disks!
I may have posted this before, but the mega-arcade in the movie, The Funspot, is definitely worth visiting if you come through New Hampshire. Place is enormous, every classic arcade game you can think of is there. It is classic coin-op geek heaven.
They have other stuff too, mini-golf, bowling, skee-ball, pinball, stuff for kids... plus it's near water slides and go-karts along Lake Winnipesaukee. Great long weekend trip.
No, I don't work for the NH Chamber of Commerce either.
Joined: 05 Jul 2011 Posts: 603 Location: Sunny Donny, up t' north, UK
Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:35 am Post subject:
ennio wrote:
I may have posted this before, but the mega-arcade in the movie, The Funspot, is definitely worth visiting if you come through New Hampshire. Place is enormous, every classic arcade game you can think of is there. It is classic coin-op geek heaven.
They have other stuff too, mini-golf, bowling, skee-ball, pinball, stuff for kids... plus it's near water slides and go-karts along Lake Winnipesaukee. Great long weekend trip.
I posted these in another thread before, but whatever, Funspot does look like a huge place:
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