Another year is coming to a close and that means many things, but one of them is that a new Kong Off Champion has been crowned. Funnily enough, it's turned out to be the same as the old champion, but that's alright because it was well deserved, as Jeff Willms battled through against world class competition with a score of well over a million points.
Even with a score as high as 1,096,200 though, Willms was not necessarily secure in his title, since he was up against several contenders who have previously scored higher than that on the official World Record table. People like the current world record holder, Hank Chien, who put up some real competition, but ultimately couldn't top Willms' efforts.
Jeff Willms, seen here with the official Donkey Kong Off championship belt
Source: TwinGalaxies
Mr Chien ultimately came in third place, with a score of 1,056,900 points, with fan favourite and star of the 2008 documentary, King of Kong, Steve Wiebe coming in fifth with 1,048,800 points, dropping two places from his last year third place posting, even though his score was up 40 odd thousand. His rival in the KoK though, Billy Mitchell, did far less impressively, despite the crowd he pulled on the day, he only placed 20th with a score of just 598,800 – though he did make it to the final heat.
Vincent Lemay, one of the hottest contenders for the current Donkey Kong world record, came in 10th with 989,700 points, while current second place world record holder Ross Benzinger took second place here as well, with an impressive 1,067,100.
Ultimately the top three players walked away with $3,000, $1,000 and $500 respectively for their efforts.
Kitguru Says: Some impressive scores all round, but it shows from the results that even the best in the world need many attempts to achieve the scores they do and even someone like Hank Chien, who's current world record has stood for over a year now, can't just knock out those sorts of scores when he wants. His performance at the Kong Off 3 falls almost 80,000 behind his highest ever score. [Thanks DKBlog]