Skip to main content

Banned ‘Donkey Kong’ player Billy Mitchell plans to prove he didn’t cheat

Billy Mitchell Statement

Following the removal of all of his gaming scores by the Twin Galaxies record-keeping organization, Donkey Kong legend Billy Mitchell has professed his innocence and revealed plans to prove he didn’t cheat at the game.

In a statement video recorded at the Midwest Gaming Classic, Mitchell said he was doing his “due diligence” to prove his records were achieved within the Twin Galaxies rules, and that “witnesses” and “documents” would be made available to the public.

Mitchell also expressed his frustration with the current administrative team at Twin Galaxies, which he said “wants to reach back 35 years” in its examination of Mitchell’s previous leaderboard scores.

Twin Galaxies, the retro-gaming record organization that tracks scores in many classic arcade games, announced on April 12 that it was removing Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong scores from its leaderboards, as well as all scores he had achieved in other games.

The decision came after the validity of several of his Donkey Kong scores were called into question, with skeptics asserting the footage captured for the records was impossible without the use of the software-emulation program MAME. This is due to the way the software produces board transitions compared to the original hardware, and Twin Galaxies asserts the tape Mitchell used for the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters was not recorded with original arcade hardware. The organization stopped short of saying MAME was used, as testing to determine this would be “beyond the scope” of what was needed for the investigation.

“From a Twin Galaxies viewpoint, the only important thing to know is whether or not the score performances are from an unmodified original Donkey Kong arcade [printed circuit board] as per the competitive rules,” Twin Galaxies said in its official statement. “We now believe that they are not from an original unmodified Donkey Kong PCB, and so our investigation of the tape content ends with that conclusion and assertion.”

As part of Twin Galaxies’ decision, the organization will now recognize Steve Wiebe as the first player to achieve a score above 1 million in Donkey Kong. Wiebe was Mitchell’s challenger featured in The King of Kong. Neither player held the current world record for the game — that honor is held by Robbie Lakeman, who achieved a score of 1,247,700 earlier this year.

This is the second high-profile controversy Twin Galaxies has dealt with in 2018. Back in January, the organization banned Todd Rogers after it was discovered he had falsified his own record for the game Dragster. As a result, Guinness World Records removed Rogers from its own database.

Updated on April 16: Added statement from Billy Mitchell.

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has instant open-world character switching
Peter and Miles perched next to each other in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Insomniac Games has finally confirmed whether or not players will be able to switch between the two playable versions of Spider-Man while exploring the open world of Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Ever since it was confirmed that Peter Parker and Miles Morales would both be playable in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, the question of whether or not players would be able to switch between them at any time in the open world arose. Although Marvel's Spider-Man 2's gameplay debut at the PlayStation Showcase didn't confirm whether or not that was the case, Creative Director Bryan Intihar revealed the answer in an interview with Eurogamer: yes, you can. 
"We have content designed around Peter, we have content designed around Miles, and we have content where you can play either. You'll be able to -- in the open world -- freely switch between them with a simple button press," Intihar confirmed. Insomniac Games also confirmed to Eurogamer that Peter and Miles will each have their own skill tree, although they will also share a third. For the most part, it looks like players will have a lot of freedom about how and with whom they want to tackle any sort of open-world objectives or sidequests.
Things will get a little more restrictive during more linear story missions, like the one we saw during the PlayStation Showcase, though. "When you're playing the main story, we control when you switch between Pete and Miles ... it's done in service to the story when we're making those switches, for sure," Intihar told Eurogamer. "So, as you saw on that gameplay reveal, which is a segment of the main story, we are predetermining those based on what we want to do for how the story plays out."
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will be released exclusively for PlayStation 5 sometime this fall.

Read more
The best games on PlayStation Plus, Extra, and Premium
A person plays Crash Bandicoot using a PS5 DualSense controller.

PlayStation Plus has gone through several iterations and changes since it was first introduced. Originally, the service wasn't required for online play at all and rewarded subscribers with extra discounts and free monthly games. Once the PlayStation 4 generation began, it was required for online play, but still offered those same benefits.

Now, PS Plus is divided into three different tiers of subscriptions. The basic tier, PS Plus Essential, still gets three games per month added, while the Extra and Premium tiers will have a varying number of games added to their catalogs. With hundreds of games already and more coming and going all the time, even the most dedicated gamer won't be able to play everything on offer. To help you get the most bang for your buck, and so that no hidden gems go under your radar, here are all the best games to play on PS Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium right now.

Read more
Street Fighter 6’s World Tour mode is the best fighting game tutorial ever
A regular fight in Street Fighter 6 World Tour.

As hard as I’ve tried, I’ve never quite been able to wrap my head around traditional 2D fighting games. I’ve clicked with the fast pace of Super Smash Bros., but I’ve just never been able to hold my own online in a King of Fighters XV match. For me, it’s always been an education and onboarding issue. Most fighting games I’ve tried teach me their wealth of nuances in a lightning-fast tutorial that shows me how to do dozens of things in the span of a few minutes. With that whirlwind pace and a lack of practical context, I always find it difficult to actually retain all of that information.

Street Fighter 6 is perhaps the first 2D fighting game that fully solves my problem and that’s because of its standout World Tour mode. At first glance, World Tour seems like a meaty piece of single-player content for players to pick at between matches. But for more casual brawlers like me, it serves a much more important purpose: It’s the most thorough, effective fighting game tutorial ever crafted.
Learning to fight
As a piece of single-player content, World Tour is an ambitious mode. It’s a full-on action RPG that plays like a classic Yakuza game. Players explore Metro City, and a few other locations, in 3D and stop to brawl in 2D battles. It’s a lengthy campaign that takes over 15 hours to complete and is filled with RPG hooks, from stats to skill trees. It’s an impressive piece of content that helps make Street Fighter 6 feel like a fully fleshed-out release on day one.

Read more