Yes that’s right. No, I didn’t know anyone was competing to be the best in the world at Donkey Kong either but it definately makes me feel better about my Golden Axe obsession. Billy Mitchell (probably not the brother of Grant and Phil) previously held the record after achieving a score of 1,050,200 back in 2007 but Hank Chien of New York bested that with a score of 1,061,700 on an arcade cabinet in his home city.

No-one makes a monkey out of Hank Chien.

Chien’s interest became aroused after first seeing the popular documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters which portrayed the struggle between Billy Mitchell and another former record holder Steven Wiebe. “I remember the exact day I knew I could get the world record: September 13, 2009,” Chien said in an interview with record keeping organisation Twin Galaxies. “That was the day I first broke a million on Donkey Kong to reach 1,037, 700. I didn’t even realise how close I was to the world record. I was going on a business trip that day and had a flight to catch, but I had about two hours to kill and figured I had enough time for one game. So I fired up my Donkey Kong machine, and on my first game, boom! Too bad getting 1,000,000 takes about 2 1/2 hours.”

What I love best about this story is the fact that Chien is actually a plastic surgeon which generally means being a very busy and very wealthy individual. I like it that he took time out of his schedule to beat the world record on Donkey Kong. Well fair play, congratulations to Hank Chien! My advice would be to celebrate this achievement and go absolutely ape. Sorry.