As much as gamers love their vintage titles, there’s nothing that’s inspired quite as much competition as Nintendo’s Donkey Kong—not to mention the amount of press that Donkey Kong battles tend to get, thanks to a documentary from 2008 called King of Kong. That particular documentary looked at the enormous battle between Kong players Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell to take the world record for high score… but since the film’s release, the world has seen the rise of a new champion.
We’ve previously reported on Dr. Hank Chien’s competitive exploits, and he’s managed to remain on the top of the world record list for a number of years now. However, there’s a new challenger in town, and he’s a poutine-eating, body-building, French Canadian! Before becoming enamoured with large, angry apes, Vincent Lemay was a World of Warcraft devotee. His most recent Donkey Kong score, however, has shown he’s a fierce competitor on the vintage gaming circuit: his score was 1,135,900, which is only 2,700 points behind Dr. Chien’s best high score.
Since posting his just-barely-in-second-place score, Lemay spoke exclusively to Patrick Scott Patterson to discuss his involvement with the arcade title:
“I obviously didn’t grow up in the arcade environment. One day, I asked my father what he used to play and he answered with Donkey Kong.
Donkey Kong has been such a pain for me in the past years. As everyone, I have a love/hate feeling with that game. Most of the time, I hate this game, but once in a while, I get a love feeling from that game, and that’s all I need to keep trying to push my score higher! But despite coming short of the record, I am extremely happy of my score.”
And if that’s not enough for you, well, it’s not enough for Lemay, either. The almost-champ has plans to not only smash, but completely obliterate Chien’s record.
“My goal with this game is 1.2 million points. Hank told me if the record is above 1.17 million he won’t try to beat it, though I’m sure he would sooner or later. No one has achieved it yet.”
Good luck, Lemay—your fellow Canadians are cheering you on.