I need to ask you something. How good are you at videogames? Obviously you enjoy them or you wouldn’t even be on this site to begin with. But how good are you? Nowadays you got gamerscores. And, as my fellow editors can attest to, they are some of the more important things in gaming. How else can you compare yourself to your peers?

But for those of us old enough to remember, that answer is easy as pie: Scores.

Now I’m sure that some of our younger friends are making a rather confused face. “Scores? We have those. They’re nothing new. You get a high score-thats the goal.” And anyone asking themselves what the hell I’m talking about probably didn’t live in the 70’s of 80’s that long. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing-especially if you remember the fashion. Christ.

However, those of us who had lived in those times are probably smiling a bit to themselves right now. We remember the times when videogames had only been around in the mainstream for five years or so. Pac Man had hit in 1980 and Ms. Pac Man a year later. I didn’t start playing till ‘83-I was six I believe. I had messed around with my cousins Atari 2600 (which released in Oct. ‘77-seven months after I was born-damn) and my NES had just hit the shelves and was at least a year away from reaching my outstretched arms. Anyways-I’m both rambling AND dating myself-shit.

The point it that scores were the reason you would walk into an arcade or pizzeria and see between four and twelve people standing around a single player as he/she housed (or got housed) by whatever machine they were glued to. Quarters were stacked on every flat surface that the player didn’t need for controls and quite a few fight would break out if anyone dares to cut in line for next game. Conversations at school consisted of things including the number of hours and quarters used to beat the local high score on the whatever machine in whatever town. At the time it was a passion of the young and seeing as how passionate people at that age it made for some interesting memories for a lot of people. Then there are those who take the nostalgia to a new level.

Enter Billy Mitchell.

Billy Mitchell has been the record holder for Centipede since the eighties. A short while ago he was Annointed the ‘Gamer of the Century’ by several publications. Mitchell is most well known for playing the first ‘perfect’ game of Pac Man in the late Nineties. Having held the record at the time for Pac Man and Burgertime, Mitchell decided to go for the Donkey Kong record as well. Which he did with a score of 874,300. Life was good for Billy until 2003 when Boeing had fired one of its employees.

Enter Steve Weibe.

A depressed family man had been enjoying his favorite game of Donkey Kong when he decided to check the high score online. It was held by some billy guy or something. Steve decided that he could beat the score and, like many out of work gamers would have done, made it a priority in his life. One year later he had not only beaten Mitchell’s score, but decimated it by achieving a score of 1,006,600! A score thought to be unattainable!

Basically the premise of the movie is Mitchell’s struggle to best Weibe’s score in Donkey Kong to be played in various states across the country. Both are trying to be the statistic in 2007’s Guiness Book of World Records. Hilarity ensues with both parties learning something about life and themsleves along the way.

Enter warm fuzzy, geeky feeling.

The DVD releases Jan 9th, 2008. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting this one.

Durka.