372 lines
19 KiB
Markdown
372 lines
19 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2014-08-06T13:15:47.000Z'
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title: 'Bizarro World: World Record Tetris (2007)'
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url: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/08/19/bizarro_world/?page=full
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author: rinesh
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points: 236
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 75
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1407330947
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_rinesh
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- story_8142269
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objectID: '8142269'
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year: 2007
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---
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# 'Bizarro World'
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## That's what my wife and I entered when we drove up to an arcade in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, where she would attempt to break an official world record in the classic video game Tetris.
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Boston Globe correspondent Billy Baker discovers his wife is really,
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really good at Tetris.
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<http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1137883319>
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<http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=245991542>
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Andrew Gardikis is a 17-year-old kid from Quincy with a shaggy mop of
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dirty blond hair and a long, lanky frame that he's still growing into.
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In the video game world, Gardikis is famous for being one of only three
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people to achieve the so-called "Holy Grail" of gaming records: a
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perfect speed run on the original Nintendo Super Mario Bros., which
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means that he finished the game and saved the princess in 5 minutes and
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8 seconds. Like a good teenager, he relies on the shrugged-shoulder
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explanation for many things. "I guess I have pretty good hand-eye
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coordination," he says when I ask him how he mastered the best-selling
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video game of all time. It also may be how he taught himself to juggle
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seven balls, and how, in a roundabout way, my wife and I this spring
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found ourselves in a Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, arcade so that she
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could attempt to break a world record in another of those classic video
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games, Tetris.
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For two years, I've been at work on a book about jugglers and the
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controversial movement to turn a 4,000-year-old performance art into a
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competitive sport. Part of my reporting involves reading Internet
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juggling forums, where the art vs. sport topic is endlessly debated. One
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day, I notice a post in a section reserved for non-juggling related
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chitchat titled "Super Mario Bros 1." The poster, "andrewg," a.k.a.
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Gardikis, wrote: "my record of 5 minutes and 9 seconds was broken. :(
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i'll tie it eventually. . . ugh. . ." The post included a link to a
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story on [twingalaxies.com](http://twingalaxies.com/) – the "Official
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Electronic Scoreboard" – detailing how a North Carolina man named Scott
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Kessler had recorded a 5:08, breaking Gardikis's old record by a second
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with what was believed to be a mistake-free, unimprovable record.
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(Gardikis achieved a 5:08 himself soon after.)
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I am not a video game person, but like most everyone of my generation, I
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was hooked on Mario. It was hard not to be – that little plumber from
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Brooklyn was an '80s icon, on par with E.T. and the Rubik's Cube. He had
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his own cartoon, his own lunchbox, his own breakfast cereal. Symphony
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orchestras played his theme song. I had to see how a teenager was
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chasing perfection in a game that had its heyday, and sold 40 million
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copies, before he was born. He was amazing.
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And so I contacted Mr. Kelly R. Flewin – he always signs his
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correspondence this way – a 29-year-old gas station attendant in
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Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the senior referee at
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[twingalaxies.com](http://twingalaxies.com/), to find out how important
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the record was in the gaming world. During a late-night phone call after
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business had quieted down at the station, he told me that any record in
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one of the more popular classic games – like Super Mario Bros., Donkey
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Kong, or Tetris – would always set the classic gaming world on fire.
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"It's funny," I told Flewin. "We have an old Nintendo Game Boy floating
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around the house, and Tetris is the only game we own. My wife will
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sometimes dig it out to play on airplanes and long car rides. She's
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weirdly good at it. She can get 500 or 600 lines, no problem."
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What Flewin said next I will never forget.
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"Oh, my\!"
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After I hung up the phone, I went to the bedroom and woke my wife, Lori.
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"Honey," I said. "You're not going to believe this, but I just got off
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the phone with a guy who's in charge of video game world records, and he
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said the world record for Game Boy Tetris is 327 lines, and he wants us
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to go to New Hampshire this spring so you can try to break the world
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record live in front of the judges at the world's largest classic video
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game tournament."If you've ever been to New Hampshire's Lake
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Winnipesaukee on a rainy day, you've probably been to Funspot. It's one
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of those huge "family fun centers" with a bowling alley and a miniature
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golf course and a bunch of Skee-Ball games where you can spend $100 to
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earn enough tickets to redeem a $5 Slinky. What few people realize is
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that the third floor of Funspot is home to the American Classic Arcade
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Museum, the world's largest repository of games from the '70s and '80s,
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the ones that launched the video game revolution. There are 180
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token-ready games on the floor at any moment and another 100 in a
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warehouse out back, making it the Louvre of the "8-bit" world.
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Since 1998, the museum has played host to the International Classic
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Video Game & Pinball Tournament, an all-star weekend for the very best
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classic video game players from around the globe, the men – and
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occasionally the women – who hold the world records on icons such as
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Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede, and Frogger. Everything inside is
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pre-1987, including the decor and the music pumping through the sound
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system. "I want it to be an immersive experience," the museum's curator,
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Gary Vincent, tells me. "For a few hours, you're transported back to
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when you were 16 years old, playing at the local arcade and hanging out
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with your girlfriend."
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Funspot is legendary for being the place where records fall. Where an
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ordinary arcade may have one or two record-holders to its credit,
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Funspot has an entire wall featuring photos of high scorers. At this
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year's tournament, I meet a gamer named Brian Kuh who retired at age 30
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– he was a bank comptroller in New York City – so he could move to
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Weirs Beach and go to Funspot every day to pursue video game world
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records full time. That was just over two years ago. Last year, he broke
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16 different world records on the first day of the tournament. At noon
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on the first day of this competition, he has already broken 10 world
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records; by 3 p.m., he has broken 17, surpassing his own record for the
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most video game world records made in a single day. He celebrates by
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playing more video games.
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Lori and I drIve to Weirs Beach in the middle of rush hour. This is
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fine. We haven't had much time to talk about the scene, and she wants to
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know what to expect. She is anxious. I can't say I blame her. After a
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few months of laughing about this whole idea that she could be a Tetris
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world record-holder, it is time for her to deliver. Live. In front of
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some of the world's best video game players.
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Since I'd woken her up that night, the idea had felt comfortably
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surreal. We'd tell friends the story and have a good laugh. I mean, it's
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Tetris. Everybody knows Tetris, and most everybody has played Tetris.
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It's the video game that people who hate video games actually love,
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probably because it's so simple. You take a shape that is falling from
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the top of the screen – there are seven possible shapes, each composed
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of four blocks – and you use the controller to rotate them and put them
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into place below, with the aim of combining the shapes into horizontal
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lines of blocks with no gaps. When you do this, you've earned a "line,"
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which then disappears. The longer you play, the faster the shapes will
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fall. You keep trying to make lines until you screw up enough times and
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the blocks start stacking to the ceiling. When you hit the top and
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there's nowhere left for the shapes to fall, the game is over.
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There are many things that attracted me to my wife, though I can't say
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an exceeding amount of hand-eye coordination was one of them. She's 31,
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she works as a nutritionist at UMass, and she's fairly athletic. She can
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hit a softball and catch a football, but there was nothing about her to
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suggest she had some innate ability for the split-second decision making
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required to succeed at Tetris when the pieces are really coming fast.
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The idea that she could be the best person to ever play the Game Boy
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version of Tetris seemed beyond crazy. Tetris was the "killer game" that
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launched the Nintendo Game Boy and the hand-held console movement, the
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same way Super Mario Bros. launched the original Nintendo Entertainment
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System. A killer game is one that is so valuable that it validates the
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cost of the system you need to play it. Nintendo bundled Tetris with the
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original Game Boy in 1989 – just as they had with Mario for the NES in
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1985 – because people were willing to shell out $89.95 just so they
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could play the addictive puzzle game. The original Game Boy sold about
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70 million units; it's successor, Game Boy Color (the version my wife
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owns), sold nearly 50 million.
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As we drive down Route 3 in Weirs Beach, we see the sign advertising the
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tournament. "The best in the world compete," it says. "I just got a wave
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of nervousness," Lori tells me. At the cabin we'd rented, she relaxes
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with our dog and plays a few more games.
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Tetris is the embodiment of comprehensive thinking," Walter Day says to
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me as Lori passes line 200 on her record attempt. She had woken up early
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that morning, played a solid game of Tetris, taken our dog for a long
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walk, and gone shopping for a T-shirt to wear for her big moment (she
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chose a cute little green number with colorful owls). For her record
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attempt, a television has been set up in the middle of the arcade,
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connected to an early '90s Super Nintendo console with an adapter to
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allow it to play Game Boy cartridges. Since the Game Boy screen is only
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about 2 inches square, this is the first time I've ever been able to
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actually watch as she plays Tetris. And I have Day, of all people, there
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to provide the commentary.
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Day left his hometown of Lynn in 1979 to move to Fairfield, Iowa, so he
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could study transcendental meditation at the Maharishi School of
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Management. Two years later, he opened an arcade in nearby Ottumwa and
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called it Twin Galaxies. One day, someone got a very high score on the
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game Defender, which involves flying a spaceship over a mountain range
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and shooting down aliens. The score was so much higher than any other
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Defender score in Day's arcade that he set out to learn if it was the
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highest score ever achieved on Defender. After calls to the game
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manufacturer went nowhere, Day decided to start his own record-keeping
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organization. On February 9, 1982, the Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard
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was launched and was quickly recognized by the manufacturers and gaming
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publications – and eventually the Guinness Book of World Records – as
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the authority on video game and pinball records.
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Day is easy to spot when he arrives at the arcade this morning, because
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he is the only person wearing a referee's jersey. "Here's what's going
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on," Day, who's 58 with a salt-and-pepper beard, tells me as I watch and
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he analyzes Lori's play. "Tetris epitomizes those types of games that
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require a coordination of the eyes, the hands, and mental comprehension
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time. When Mickey Mantle heard the crack off the bat, he got an extra
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step. That's what your wife has. She's got to plug into the data she's
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seeing immediately. Success at Tetris is based exclusively on the
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ability to recognize the information you're getting faster than the
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average person."
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I am amazed that Lori is able to keep a straight face and concentrate. A
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dozen gamers are gathered round to watch her play. A very pregnant
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photographer is lying on the floor underneath the table, shooting Lori
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as she plays. The flash is right in her face. The sound system is
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blaring "Take My Breath Away" from the Top Gun soundtrack. Yet she keeps
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playing. Brilliantly. She has her game face on; I didn't even know she
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had a game face. By the time she reaches 300 lines and level 30, the
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highest level of the game, the pieces are blasting down the screen. I
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overhear a guy next to me say, "While I'm thinking, ‘Put it there,'
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she's already put it there." For the first time, I allow myself to
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believe that she really is that good.
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At 4:46 p.m., she blows past her 328th line with her blocks still
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stacked way at the bottom. I lean over to Gardikis, the Super Mario
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teenager who has come up to Funspot for the day, and whisper that she
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just passed the record. I'm pumped. My wife is a Tetris world
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record-holder. I feel like handing out cigars.
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Then Mr. Kelly R. Flewin comes over, holding a laptop connected to the
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Twin Galaxies record database. He tells me there's a problem.
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The King of Kong, a documentary that opens in Boston on Friday, is about
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a problem with a Twin Galaxies world record, the prestigious Donkey Kong
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points record. The film centers on Billy Mitchell, a Holyoke native and
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video game legend who has held the Donkey Kong rec-ord since 1982, and
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Steve Wiebe, a down-on-his-luck math teacher from Washington state whose
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attempts to beat Mitchell for Donkey Kong supremacy are questioned
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because the videotapes of his record-setting scores are challenged.
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The dispute is a huge controversy in the classic gaming world. Robert
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Mruczek, a Brooklyn native with Coke-bottle glasses and thinning, curly
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hair, was a Twin Galaxies referee for 5½ years. He estimates he has
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spent 8,000 hours – from midnight to 4 a.m. almost every day – verifying
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records. After the Donkey Kong controversy, he quit. "I felt like I did
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two tours of duty in Nam, and I didn't want to sign up for a third," he
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tells me. Mruczek has a sadness to him as he recounts the Wiebe saga, as
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if something important to him has been taken away. "With the elite
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titles," he says, "if you make a mistake reporting something that is
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important to the community, it could have repercussions down the line.
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You don't want to treat it with an asterisk if it's tainted and just
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doesn't sit well." Mruczek says he's worried that the handling of the
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Wiebe rec-ord has set a dangerous precedent that could set back the
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community to the '80s, when people would claim records that were
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impossible to achieve. Twin Galaxies has long since abandoned its
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original verification process, which required a photo of the screen
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showing the high score and a signed affidavit from the player. Now, a
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player must videotape his or her game according to strict guidelines or
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perform the game live in front a Twin Galaxies judge.
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Which brings us back to Lori. I can't understand what the problem could
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be. Lori began her record attempt in front of Flewin, a senior referee,
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and Day, the head honcho. She is not using any cheat codes or banned
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techniques because, frankly, she doesn't know any.
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It turns out that her version of Game Boy Tetris is Tetris DX, the same
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as the original game but in color, and it is a separate category,
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according to Twin Galaxies rules, with a much higher record. I look at
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Flewin's computer and see the name Harry J. Hong, along with his record:
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545 lines.
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Lori can get 545 lines. I know this. I also know it is considerably
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harder than the 327 lines Flewin had initially told me about (which is
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the record for the original black-and-white version of Tetris for the
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Game Boy). She is already 40 minutes into her attempt, and I am certain
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that Day and Flewin aren't going to sit around to watch another attempt
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if she fails. Despite my efforts, Lori hears a bit about what is going
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on and yells at me – the way wives yell at their husbands when they're
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being shady – to explain what is happening. I give her the lowdown, but
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she would later tell me all she heard was "500-something."
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At 5:01 p.m. on the Funspot clock, she completes her 545th line and then
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leaves Harry J. Hong in the dust. At 600 lines, with her blocks still at
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the bottom, she glances over at me quickly.
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"Billy, I definitely have the record, right?"
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"Oh, yeah," I reply. "Now you're just showing off."
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The crowd is getting into it. Twice, she makes mistakes and the pieces
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pile to the top of the screen, but she gets out of it. After an hour of
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playing, Lori makes one mistake too many and her game ends. She has
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destroyed the record – her final score is 841 lines. We would later
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determine this was her second-best game ever.
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Day comes over to shake her hand. Lori is laughing as Day declares her
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"the greatest Tetris player in the world," then turns to me to add, "And
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I must say, she's also the prettiest."
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"That was one of the most bizarre moments of my life," she says. "The
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flashes were going off and Walter was talking. It was like Bizarro
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World."
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What does it mean to be the best in the world at something? This is what
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runs through my mind as we lay in bed Sunday morning. We are both
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struggling to understand what Lori's mastery of a game that Day calls
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"the embodiment of comprehensive thinking" means in our lives.
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As I go to pack the car, I realize that Lori has bought some things on
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the trip, and fitting them into our Jeep Cherokee is getting tricky.
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Then I look over at Lori, and it all makes sense. "From now on," I tell
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the new master of fitting shapes into tight spaces, "you pack the
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car."![](http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_story_end_icon.gif)
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© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper
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Company.
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![](http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_arrow_icon.gif)
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FREETETRIS.ORG:
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[Play Tetris
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online](http://www.freetetris.org/)
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![](http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_arrow_icon.gif) [Quincy
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||
youth shoots for Super Mario
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record](http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/03/25/all_thumbs/)
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||
|
||
![Pop-up](http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_popup_icon.gif
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||
"Pop-up") [Globe Magazine Video -- the Super Mario
|
||
record](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/08/12/video_super_mario)
|
||
|
||
![Pop-up](http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_popup_icon.gif
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||
"Pop-up") [Globe Magazine Video -- Super Mario at High
|
||
Speed](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/08/12/video_mario_highspeed)
|
||
![](http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/gallery_arrow_previous.gif)![](http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/gallery_arrow_next.gif)
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