The King of Kong
In 1980s Ottumwa, Iowa, Walter Day founds Twin Galaxies, an organization formed to keep track of high scores achieved on arcade games. The organization rises to national prominence after it and several high-scoring players are featured in a Life Magazine spread. One of those players is Billy Mitchell, who, having achieved the highest ever recorded scores on Donkey Kong and Centipede in the 1980s, remains a video game legend in 2005. Mitchell, a restaurateur by trade, maintains a strong relationship with both Day and Twin Galaxies, which has now become a global organization. Mitchell is portrayed as unabashedly cocky and fond of self-promotion, proclaiming himself the "Sauce King" of Florida for his successful line of homemade hot sauces. Next to his family, Mitchell considers his arcade scores to be his greatest life achievements.
On the other side of the country, in Redmond, Washington, Boeing engineer Steve Wiebe has recently been laid off. His friends and his wife, Nicole, describe him as an unfortunate figure who always comes up short due to his obsessive compulsive disorder, despite being proficient at music, sports, art, and mathematics. He was a star baseball pitcher but was injured and unable to pitch in the state championship; he is a gifted drummer but will only play music at home. Preparing to get back into the workforce, Wiebe begins going to night school to get a master's degree and obtains a Donkey Kong machine to play in his garage to relax in between studying. After reading about Mitchell's world record of 874,300 on the internet, Wiebe focuses on mastering Donkey Kong. Using his knowledge of mathematics to identify certain patterns and timing intervals in the game, Wiebe successfully achieves a score of 1,006,600 points. Wiebe submits a tape to Twin Galaxies, which propels him to becoming a local celebrity and news topic as the new world record holder for a few weeks.
Mitchell sends his self-styled protege, retired banker turned pro-gamer Brian Kuh, to investigate Wiebe's machine. Kuh learns that the machine's circuit board was provided by Roy Shildt, a self-proclaimed fitness guru and pickup artist who claims to hold the high score for Missile Command. Unbeknownst to Wiebe, Shildt and Mitchell have been nemeses for years ever since Mitchell caused Shildt's high score to be brought under scrutiny, preventing him from receiving official recognition from Twin Galaxies. Since then, Shildt has been looking for a way to exact clandestine revenge on Mitchell. Based on Wiebe's association with Shildt, the staff of Twin Galaxies suspects that Wiebe's board might have been tampered with and that he may have achieved his score dishonestly.
In order to prove his gaming skills, Wiebe travels to Funspot Arcade in Laconia, New Hampshire, to perform a high score live for Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day and other high-ranking members of Twin Galaxies, hoping to confront Mitchell and play head-to-head. Although Mitchell does not attend, he sends Kuh to observe Wiebe's play. Just prior to the kill screen, Kuh gathers a large crowd to witness Wiebe's achievement. Wiebe reaches the kill screen and also achieves a new world record. Contrary to his own assertion that scores achieved in public carry more validity than videotaped scores, Mitchell immediately sends a low-quality VHS to Funspot, depicting himself achieving a higher score of 1,047,200 points. Despite Wiebe's protests that his own first score was disqualified for being submitted via unsupervised videotape, Twin Galaxies accepts Mitchell's score over Wiebe's and proclaims that Mitchell's new score makes Mitchell the record holder once again.
Nine months later, Wiebe learns that Guinness World Records wants to publish several of Twin Galaxies' records — including Mitchell's latest score. Wiebe and his family travel to Hollywood, Florida, near Mitchell's home, to challenge him in a public competition, but Mitchell refuses to accept the challenge, and Wiebe fails to surpass a million points. Nevertheless, Day, on behalf of Twin Galaxies, finally acknowledges Wiebe's integrity and credibility and apologizes for how Wiebe was treated. Day presents Wiebe with a special award and welcomes him to continue submitting scores to Twin Galaxies.
In a coda to the film, Wiebe achieves the world record of 1,049,100 in his garage.
psychedelic