I feel sorry for the new guy trying for a Kong record.

[homerwannabee]

I don't know, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that it's harder, and harder for the Average Joe to get a world record on any of the Kong games.  I don't care what game it is, if it is an Arcade/MAME game, and has Kong in the title odds are that score has increased tremendously in just the past 5 years.  Even the obscure weird/rare romsets have seen their scores jump tremendously.

Now don't get me wrong there are still some very acheivable Kong high scores, but most of them are super obscure clones of the original game.

I can't imagine what the high scores will look like by the end of 2019!

[ChrisP]

Agreed. However, this is becoming truer of all classic arcade games.

Consider all the soft spots that existed five years ago that have been grabbed since then. For any remotely popular title, if there isn't somebody who absolutely killed (or faked) it back in the day, then somebody's come along during this "classic arcade renaissance" of the last few years to bury it.

Donkey Kong is/has hit a competitive peak, wherein the effort needed to crack the high end of the scoreboard continues to increase, even as the distinction/exclusivity of doing so continues to decrease.

We've reached a point where even 1.1 is not a particularly big deal anymore, yet it's just as time and effort-intensive as it's always been. That diminishing return is gonna take a toll on how interesting/motivating the competition is.

Nowadays, with the competition between players reaching a plateau, you really need to have a serious internal/personal reason to push at it. It has to be intrinsically meaningful to you. It's not really about scoreboard spots anymore.

[andrewg]

There are a lot of competitive titles that have reached this point in competition. Beating out a specialist of any game is tough. If you play multiple titles, and you are competing against someone who only plays a single game that is.

However, it's all about patience, practice, and determination. Beating the arcade score is definitely still in reach as it is, surprisingly (at least I'm surprised). The MAME score is also reachable, but the dedication to the game has to be there. All records are beatable, and there may still be things to discover, as with any video game.

I don't think the Kong titles are necessarily the hardest records to beat, but they certainly are up there. The other thing is that many arcade world records (and world records in general) are a lot about luck. Not to say there's no skill involved, but just that luck IS required to top many world records due to the randomness of a game, etc.

This is why in some ways I like deterministic games with patterns. In this case, it is all about your ability to optimize the game rather than avoid its nonsense. Both are enjoyable, but I prefer that my mistakes kill me rather than the game itself killing me.

All records are beatable. If you really want to beat a record, you will...unless you give up.

[KIG666]

There are a lot of competitive titles that have reached this point in competition. Beating out a specialist of any game is tough. If you play multiple titles, and you are competing against someone who only plays a single game that is.

However, it's all about patience, practice, and determination. Beating the arcade score is definitely still in reach as it is, surprisingly (at least I'm surprised). The MAME score is also reachable, but the dedication to the game has to be there. All records are beatable, and there may still be things to discover, as with any video game.

I don't think the Kong titles are necessarily the hardest records to beat, but they certainly are up there. The other thing is that many arcade world records (and world records in general) are a lot about luck. Not to say there's no skill involved, but just that luck IS required to top many world records due to the randomness of a game, etc.

This is why in some ways I like deterministic games with patterns. In this case, it is all about your ability to optimize the game rather than avoid its nonsense. Both are enjoyable, but I prefer that my mistakes kill me rather than the game itself killing me.

All records are beatable. If you really want to beat a record, you will...unless you give up.

Great post fully agree with all of your points.

All records are beatable with enough patience, practice and of course enough tenacity.

However a maxed out score is a maxed out score and always hard to beat.

[ebinsugewa]

I don't think the Kong titles are necessarily the hardest records to beat, but they certainly are up there.

Just curious, which do you think are some of the hardest?

[andrewg]

I don't think the Kong titles are necessarily the hardest records to beat, but they certainly are up there.

Just curious, which do you think are some of the hardest?

These seem extremely difficult to top:
Missile Command (tournament)
Ms. Pac-man
Track & Field
Marble Madness
Frogger


On the arcade front, I'm not as knowledgeable as I want, but there are quite a few titles that seem to be nearly unbeatable. Popular titles do get the most attention in general.

I was sort of thinking of some speedruns too, since that's mostly what I do:
Super Metroid - Any%
Super Mario 64 - 70 Star
Contra - Any%

There are a lot of speedrun records that are insane.

[marinomitch13]

These seem extremely difficult to top:
Missile Command (tournament)
Ms. Pac-man
Track & Field
Marble Madness
Frogger

I'll definitely second that mentioning of T&F. The record is definitely up there, but if any one else takes up the vibe tech, it should make it a lot easier (however, having practiced the vibe tech on my own on several occasions, it really requires one own their own machine so it can be fine-tuned). That said, if I ever get my own T&F machine, I'll definitely be going hard for that record! 

[NightRider]

Speaking of vibe tech, does anyone know what happened to Mike Mallory? I remember seeing a pic of an accident that he had at work that messed his hand up. I had never heard of the VT before he introduced it over at CAGDC.