Fleet-fingered player Wes Copeland has posted a new high score in Donkey Kong - and it may just be unbeatable...
"How high can you get?" was the challenge issued by Nintendo's arcade classic, Donkey Kong - and players are still tussling over who can get the highest score over three decades later.
The rivalry between retro gamers Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe captured imaginations the world over thanks to the 2007 documentary King of Kong, but their high scores have since been kicked into the bushes by another pair of players - Wes Copeland and Robbie Lakeman.
In fact, the dramatic rivalry between the two gives King of Kong a run for its money: last year, the world record changed hands between Copeland and Lakeman three times, with Copeland wresting the score from Lakeman only for the latter to break the high score yet again less than six hours later. You can read the full story behind the drama here.
Those with an inside-out knowledge of the game suggest that the highest possible score in Donkey Kong is around 1.2m - the game has a famous bug which ends the game at the 22nd level (its oft-discussed 'Kill Screen'), which means getting a new high score means squeezing every last extra point and bonus before that terminal stage is reached.
In March this year, Lakeman racked up a frighteningly high score of 1,190,200 - just beating Copeland's score of 1,190,000 set in January and decimating Hank Chien's score of 1,138,000 set in 2012.
But on the 5th May, Copeland posted a score on Facebook which will, he says, be his "last record score." At 1,218,000, it's not only a new record, but also a "perfect" score - miraculously, Copeland managed to achieve it without losing a single life.
Can Lakeman - or anybody - beat such a score? With the absolute upper limit reckoned to be in the region of 1.24 million, it's just possible that someone with the endurance and reactions can wring out the last few points from Donkey Kong.
