Review: King Of Kong - A Fistful of Quarters

(Originally reviewed in 2011)

I grew up in the 90s so I didn’t grow up with the coin-eating arcade games and while I do play a lot of video games I never play competitively.

So to see these grown men spend hours upon days upon weeks of their lives playing these games is an interesting look to say the least. At its heart the documentary is about two completely different men; Billy Mitchell a long-time champion with five world titles under his belt and Steve Weibe, a down on his luck teacher that always comes up second best. At the start Billy appears is introduced as the best Gamer in the World, he may be a little up himself but no more than any other top dog, however as the film goes on he’s shown to be devious bastard and an all round douchebag.

He appears this way because he’s compared to Steve. Steve is the underdog, he’s never been the best at anything but when he’s laid off he decides to find something that will keep his mind occupied – it’s never fully stated but Steve may have O.C.D. or possibly be slightly autistic – and so he finds Donkey Kong and sets out to beat the top score, there is nothing malicious in his actions he just wants to be the best at something for the first time in his life. With weeks of practise and his obsessive nature Steve discovers a system at how to beat the levels and tapes himself – humorously with his young son asking him to ‘Wipe his bum’ – beating Billy’s score. And here is where the true nature of competitive gaming is introduced.

To make sure Steve score isn’t faked two men essentially break into Steve’s garage and take pictures of the inside of the machine, during their search they find a package from Roy ‘Mr Awesome’ Shildt, a long time rival of Billy Mitchell’s. No one could find anything wrong with the machine but just because of Roy’s possible involvement Steve’s score wasn’t official.

The film does a great job of portraying the two men as completely different, Steve constantly wants to have that one win and goes out of his way to try and beat the record in public. Billy on the other hand pulls tricks form behind the scenes – a horrible moment comes when Steve manages to beat the score only to have Billy take it away hours later via a tape he sent in.

It’s a very interesting film because these are two actual people that are almost impossible to be real, in fact this whole culture is too unreal and to see this unbelievably competitive world it really makes you wonder – especially for a modern gamer such as myself – is this what I could become.

8/10