Iowa Town Wants Video Game Hall of Fame

Plastic surgeon Hank Chien topped record score during Feb. blizzard

(NEWSER) - Step aside, Billy Mitchell—the new “King of Kong” is New York City plastic surgeon Hank Chien, who beat Mitchell's Donkey Kong scoring record by 10,000 points. The arbiter of Donkey Kong scoring, Twin Galaxies, has verified Chien’s score on the classic arcade game. The real shocker: The doctor has been playing the game only since last September. “It’s something to add to my resume,” says the Harvard grad. More»

Star Wars impressed, but Donkey Kong was barrels of fun

(NEWSER) - They may seem primitive alongside your Wii, but lest we forget the glory days of arcade games, Peter Hartlaub counts down the best in the San Francisco Chronicle. The top five:

1. Donkey Kong: 30 years on, “they’re making documentaries about this incredible video game,” whose barrel-throwing gorilla helped put Nintendo on the map.
2. Star Wars: The game made you feel “immersed in the movie,” and boasted the voice of Alec Guinness.

Classic games like Super Mario Brothers actually 'NP-Hard'

(NEWSER) - Science has confirmed what you already knew as a 10-year-old: Super Mario Brothers is hard to beat. But the paper by a team of international computer scientists uses actual math to come to that pointy-headed conclusion, the Washington Post reports, and focuses on not just the Mario series but also Donkey Kong, Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. The title of the paper? "Classic Nintendo Games are (NP-)Hard." More»

Site lets horndog gamers pay for sexy foe

(NEWSER) - Male online gamers surely fantasize that one of their opponents is a good-looking female, and one Web site is looking to capitalize, making it happen in exchange for dough. Gamecrush can set you up with a PlayDate whose profile you find sexy, er, interesting, and $10 gets you about 10 minutes. The more in-demand the PlayDate is, the more money she can make—up to $30 an hour, GameDaily notes, which is plenty of incentive for spicing up the profile with images and video. More»

Beat the villain, get the details

(NEWSER) - A pair of self-proclaimed “geeks” have channeled the old-school, 8-bit likes of Super Mario and Donkey Kong to create an unusual wedding invitation—and invitees only get the details if they beat the gorilla-ish villain. “We knew that we didn’t want standard paper invites,” the bride-to-be/game character (you can also play the groom) tells Offbeat Bride . “We wanted something for people to keep and remember. We are geeks. We love video games. Why not have a video game invite?” Check the video, or download the game here (invitation not included.) More»