In other news, Retro-gamer mortality has gone up due to exhaustion brought on by the constant need to outdo each other on the high score boards.

Starcade announces the closing of its doors, and new editions of King of Kong will now be produced with a touching eulogy at the end of its film.

Yes! I can finally beat that annoying level 256! Ohhh how I've waited for this day to come! FINALLY I can do it! Hurrah! *rolls eyes*

Only a matter of time for Dokey Kong...

I don't think I've ever gotten past the fourth level of Pacman, so I couldn't even imagine the effort it'd take to get to 256. :(

so that glitch is like getting to the 100th level in duck hunt?...cause im still waiting for anyone to fix that one

you lost me at A little history here. Everyman terms please???
~peace~

Someone can make it to the Two hundred and fifty-sixth board....

@Green-clad Gamer Dude: He already did it:
[donhodges.com]

How great would it be to have a second part of The King of Kong? With Wiebe and Mitchell actually squaring off in final battle?

Wait, so that wasn't intentional? I just thought the level was like that just to punish the player for being awesome enough to get that far.

And for the record, I can barely get to the fourth board.

I thought that holds and grouping only worked for Ms.Pacman, as they ghosts had personalities, and didn't follow a set pattern like they do in regular Pacman.

It's sad that both regular Pacman and Ms.Pacman crash after so long :-/

So when can be expect a "rom-leak" to be shown to the public <_<

Pretty thorough write-up of the fix there. Ugh, assembly, but at least once you know what the cause is, the bugfix is pretty simple.

I wonder in 35 years which, if any, of today's releases will still be on the radar.

Now let him fix the RRoD (plz dont take so long)

@Green-clad Gamer Dude: Actually, it's already been done by the same guy. [donhodges.com]

Heh. 256 being one above the very highest number for 8-bit CPUs, probably where the bug came from

@Shin-san: 255 is the highest value of RGB. that's probably why?

Anyway.. I can't even reach level 50 in Pacman, so I'm not bothered.

Didn't Billy Mitchel offer up $100,000 to the first person to figure out how to get past board 256?

These seem like things that the average player (like myself) would probably never even see or think about. I never sat down with Pac-Man long enough to get past the first couple levels, but I'm glad there's someone looking out for those who can best me 100+ times over!

@rich8606:
255 is the highest because it's 8 bits.

@OldManGaming:

Halo

Hm, donhodges.com appears to have gone kaput.

Records are only legit if Twin Galaxies says so.
In fact, I wouldn't go crazy about any kind of exploits achieved with the patch until Twin Galaxies makes an official ruling. *thanks "King of Kong"*

Man, King of Kong just left me depressed and proved to me how dead the arcade scene really is in the US. It almost always seems like the guys at the top (even if only still in the mind of the people) can find some technicality that makes sure no "little guy" can win (and of course they also seem to have no problem using the same methods they claimed couldn't be used). It's all so political.

@Al Bino: If you check Twin Galaxies, Billy Mitchell is in first place again. I don't know why that makes me a little sad...

[www.twingalaxies.com]

Also, Steve Wiebe even has a little videoclip on the King of Kong site saying so:

[www.billyvssteve.com]

This is really interesting. Does anyone know what languages were used back in the day to code games of this era?

I've always wondered that.

@B-Tizo: I doubt it. Shooters evolve too easily. I'm sure people thought GoldenEye would last forever too (but it's only been about 10 years).

Nah, gaming like Pac-Man, DK, Mario are a one-of-a-kind.

"We've got a kill screen coming up, if you want to come over and watch". "We've got a kill screen". "Kill screen".

@bangbangblah: and the demand isn't still high for it to come to the VC?

ive never in my life beaten the first level. i didnt even know it had more. pacman isnt a game i think of fondly.

Well done! Now give us the long-awaited World -2 in SMB. Time to teach those damn Cheep-Cheeps a lesson.

Robotube: Assembly language.

Most games store data into memory cells of finite size, hence result on a finite hard limite... 128, 256,512, 1024, 2048.... so most games have a top for scores.

little did the man know that on level 258, the ghosts acquire guns.
fuck you pac-man, fuck you.

@Evdor:
I've only heard of one person managing a to play a perfect game (never missed a fruit/key/whatever, got all four ghosts on every power pellet, etc.), so I'm not sure the one-up-man-ship really needed this to continue.

@Namrepus: He did, at least according to wikipedia (must be true). However, modding the ROM is surely outside of the rules.