BigBadBob's Blog

So this documentary is basically about two guys who compete for the high score in the arcade version of Donkey Kong. While I thought it would be interesting to see “professional” gamers go at it, I quickly realized the kind of people that play games professionally are vain, inconsiderate, arrogant, and all-around losers. Let me introduce the two main players in the game.

Above is the defending champion, Billy Mitchell. This mullet-toting weirdo has been known as one of the best gamers ever due to his high score in Donkey Kong. He enjoyed a simple life of selling hot sauce by day and being a gaming ambassador by night. However, this arrogrant prick is exposed as the jerk he is when a newcomer challenges his score.

Steve Wiebe is the challenger. After getting laid off, he decides the smart move is to purchase a Donkey Kong arcade machine, place it in his garage, and spend his life practicing and mapping out the patterns of the game, so that he memorizes when to make which moves. Doing this causes him to ignore his wife and kids, which is apparent when the one kid runs into the garage while he is playing and shouts “wipe my butt daddy!” So what does this father-of-the-year candidate do? He gets mad and ignores the kid as he keeps his attention to trying to reach a high score.

So the documentary basically follows Wiebe’s quest to conquer Mitchell’s high score. As you watch, you see how annoying these people actually are. Wiebe gets a high score on his home arcade and submits an video of it. Mitchell claims it cant be accepted since its his own arcade, so he could have tampered with it and cheated. Mitchell even has friends go to Wiebe’s house, where they basically break into his garage, tear apart his arcade machine, and snoop around his garage looking for proof of tampering. So then Wiebe goes to “neutral ground” at an arcade and invites Mitchell to come and defend his title. Mitchell refuses to come. Wiebe tries the same thing months later at another arcade. Mitchell refuses to show again, yet has his friends give him up to the minute news of how Wiebe is doing, and you see Mitchell’s friends trying to get pressure on Wiebe to mess him up as he plays. Wiebe succeeds in beating Mitchell’s high score on a neutral arcade machine, and it is accepted by the official video game high score agency, Twin Galaxies. However, to prove what a jerk Mitchell is, he then submits a video of himself beating Wiebe’s new high score, which is retarded since he originally disputed Wiebe’s video high score.

I think the biggest thing I got out of this documentary was that professional gamers are jerks. While I love playing games, it is a hobby, and nothing more. I would never let it run my life the way it has done to the losers in the documentary. These people put their need to have a high score come before their families, friends, and personal life. I mean, Wiebe is a middle school teacher, and yet he puts his planning and such aside so that he can go home and play Donkey Kong. You really see how games have altered their lives, and shaped them into being jerks. While Wiebe appears as a simple loser who puts games first, Mitchell is portrayed even worse, being an arrogant baby who would die if his precious name was no longer #1 on the Twin Galaxies website. I mean, come on, its just your name on a screen…who gives a crap?! What kind of life is that, where you neglect your wife and kids so that some other nerds will look up to you and buy you a Coke when you go to an arcade?!

The documentary was very enjoyable and entertaining, as I had a blast cursing out the losers on the screen. In my opinion, Billy Mitchell does have the high score…of being a deuche bag!