Ladies and gentlemen, please bow before the new King of Kong.
Hank Chien, 35, established himself as the world's greatest Donkey Kong player by scoring a whopping 1,061,700 points in the original arcade version of the classic coin-op hit. Plastic surgeon by day, the New Yorker accomplished the herculean gaming feat in just 2 hours and 35 minutes.
The video game scorekeeping gurus at Twin Galaxies verified the number, which trumps the previous mark of 1,050,200 set by Billy Mitchell, infamous antagonist from hit documentary The King of Kong.
And it was that very film that got Chien interested in the Donkey Kong record in the first place.
"The King of Kong piqued my interest in the game and after watching the documentary I started to play seriously in November of 2008," he told Twin Galaxies. "Back then I wasn't shooting for any world records; I was just playing for fun. I had no idea I could even reach the killscreen. What kept me interested was that I kept improving. Otherwise, I would have quit a long time ago."
Chien's accomplishment underscores a resurgence in classic game record-breaking efforts. In January, a Connecticut man topped the Frogger world record, while late last year, an Ohio resident managed a perfect score in the original coin-op version of Pac-Man in the fastest time ever.