The King of Guitar Hero Kong

I don't watch a lot of films these days, the last film that I subjected myself to was Spider-man 3, it was an unimpressive movie that made my inner Peter Parker cry, Spider-man 3 along with a number of other films that have been relegated to a cobweb filled corner of my mind contributed to killing my faith in movies, but once in a while I will be enticed into watching something, my latest leap of faith has led me to 'The King of Kong', an extremely entertaining documentary about Steve Wiebe's quest to beat the highest recorded score in King Kong, set by Billy Mitchell at an amazing 957,300 the score has never been beaten despite numerous attempts by other full-time retro-gamers. Although the film is a documentary the personalities of Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell fit neatly into the typical film character archetypes, Billy's arrogant self-serving nature places him firmly in the 'bad-guy' character slot. Steve Wiebe is shown as someone with limitless potential hindered by a string of bad luck, after about fifteen minutes you'll find yourself rooting for the guy. The film is very entertaining, even if you don't like video games, the most intriguing aspect of the movie is the whole culture of professional (if you can call it that) retro-gaming, the different allegiances and deceptive nature of a number of the characters creates great tension between the characters, its great to watch.
After watching the movie I headed off to an event being held in Zaavi (formerly Virgin Megastores) by Guiness Book of World Records, the main events of the day were a Guitar
Hero relay marathon, the event involved 50 pairs playing one song each in a co-op mode on a variety of different difficulty levels, a world record attempt at the highest score set by 6 people on one guitar, each person would be assigned one button with one player strumming, and lastly Luke Albiges would attempt to beat his own record (in case you're wondering, he failed).
The event was attended by a number of well known people in both the gaming and music world including the 'Fragdolls UK', the cast of 'We will rock you' and rock band 'Towers of London'.
The excellent turnout begs the question of why there isn't a more professional competitive gaming league in the UK.

The King of Kong showed how a small time record tracking company 'Twin Galaxies' went from a couple of guys tracking scores on a website to an institution that is seen as the premier competitive gaming source. Maybe Xbox live should take leader boards more seriously, here are some pictures for your enjoyment and you can head over to the HoboGamer youtube space to check out videos from the event. Kitt and Jam of Fragdolls UK fame rock out on some Guitar Hero 2.

The cast of 'We will rock you' and 'Towers of London' pose for pictures.

Imran, London's very own Guitar Hero does what he does best, plays Guitar Hero, Imran later went on to set a record as one part of the 6-man team, he strummed till his fingers bled leading the makeshift team to victory.

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