Mark Alpiger of King of Kong fame plays DOJ

[drboom]

Not sure where I should post this, but Off Topic seems right.

Spent the weekend with Mark Alpiger, former Crystal Castles WR holder and of King of Kong fame. We hung out and played some classics as well as embarked on a road trip to meet up with a number of people, all classics players and WR (or former) holders, including Walter Day of Twin Galaxies.

The first night we captured a bunch of stuff on my CC machine on video as I have a pretty rare conversion board with a number of bug-fixes which he wanted to document.

I did get him to play a credit on DOJ and popped the video on youtube for all of you King of Kong fans to check out. Click here to go there

I'm also going to do a write up of the weekend, which was surreal and quite fun. Should have it on my blog over the weekend.

[adversity1]

I loled at how he was actually managing to chain parts without knowing how to adjust speed with shot/laser.

Good shit.

[nash87]

I was trapped, the screen was too big

[Necronopticous]

Lovin' it.

[linko9]

Jesus, he was bashing the shit out of that joystick. Also, I was unaware that joysticks were ever on the right hand side, but I gather from what he said at the beginning that this used to be standard. Can anyone give a quick history of when that changed?

[antares]

Great video!!!

When I was a kid I had joysticks for my C64 and A500 that had the stick on the right hand side, it took a little time to get used to when I first played with a stick on the left side.
But I don't know of any arcade machines that have the stick on the right.

[neorichieb1971]

Sounds like a bit of a dick to me. People who shout at the screen seem very unbalanced people.

[Strider77]

Also, I was unaware that joysticks were ever on the right hand side, but I gather from what he said at the beginning that this used to be standard.

Alot of games use to have one joystick in the center with 2 sets of buttons on the left and right side so you could choose. I remember playing Robocop in the arcades like that. If memory serves me right alot of the classic older games were like that also.

but this is the same guy who bragged about his fingerless glove that game him super powers in marble madness if memory serves me right?

[NTSC-J]

What a dickhole. It's a shame he felt the need to say all the retarded things about Japan and was obsessing so much about how far he got on his first try, because he seemed like he's probably an ok guy but he's just so insecure.

And as far as claims that The King of Kong misrepresented these guys...eh, that's you, fella. Enjoy.

[Skykid]

Bloody hell chaps, give the bloke a break!

A video goes up of some dude playing a bit of DDP for the first time and suddenly it becomes a forum for scrutinising his psychological makeup.
He may be slightly extrovert or even insecure, but no more I'd wager than most of the game freaks on this forum.

[neorichieb1971]

lol.

I think anyone on this forum could of got further than that with one credit. As for his personality, like someone said above, why complain about how Japanese make cabinets and where they position their buttons.

He complained -

The screen was too big
The joystick was in the wrong place
Its got Japanese text in the game (oooh, its a Japanese game moron)

Basically he's saying "Stupid japanese".. Like he knows better or something. Whatever.. He might be hardcore with his games, but his mouth was the most noticed attribute of that video. DOJ was just background noise. The star of that video was Mark Alpiger.

All he did was depress the fire button the whole time. For someone who has played DDP before, obviously doesn't know the game mechanics very much.

[jonny5]

lol.

I think anyone on this forum could of got further than that with one credit. As for his personality, like someone said above, why complain about how Japanese make cabinets and where they position their buttons.

He complained -

The screen was too big
The joystick was in the wrong place
Its got Japanese text in the game (oooh, its a Japanese game moron)

Basically he's saying "Stupid japanese".. Like he knows better or something. Whatever.. He might be hardcore with his games, but his mouth was the most noticed attribute of that video. DOJ was just background noise. The star of that video was Mark Alpiger.

All he did was depress the fire button the whole time. For someone who has played DDP before, obviously doesn't know the game mechanics very much.

he actually did say 'stupid japanese' and ' those idiot japanese'....i was kinda surprised you didnt chastise him on that one, drboom...

i particularly like the end where he is saying its not that hard because he managed to bomb his way to the end of the 2nd stage with out chaining at all....

no idea who he is, but from that video i dislike him

[Udderdude]

Step 2. Show the guy DOJ superplay DVD and blow his mind

[drboom]

@jonny5 - yeah, he kind of took me by suprise with the Japanese comments. He's a bit quick with his tongue and like to complain about a lot of stuff. If I made a list of the things he complained about that weekend, it'd take me all day.

He comes off a bit bad, I'll admit that, but the guy is just quirky as hell and not very PC.

[Skykid]

the guy is just quirky as hell and not very PC.

Crucify him!

[captpain]

He's a goofy guy, but then again he's a real old-school geek and it's fun to watch him enjoy playing a game like this.


Although he shouldn't just laser the whole damn time.

[kengou]

As someone who plays shmups entirely with pads, playing DOJ on a cab just looks very unappealing to me. I think I would really prefer the joystick to be on the right since I'm a righty, even though paradoxically d-pads are always on the left and I'm fine with that. It just feels like with a joystick I would need to use different motor skills.

Oh well, some people can get along great with a stick but just watching that video and seeing the constant tapping makes it look so clunky to me. (and I have tried a stick on a cab with shmups and I don't generally like it).

Also I don't know this guy but he does come off in the video as a bit annoying. Always asking if his run to the middle of stage 2 while bombing repeatedly is impressive. It's better than average people though. For comparison I have a friend who had never played shmups before, I put him down in front of Donpachi stage 1 (imo one of the easiest first stages ever), and he died before even reaching the boss. Still, pretty sure I at least got to the boss of stage 2 in DOJ on my first playthrough and I suck pretty hard!

[jonny5]

if you arent trying to chain DOJ doesnt really get daunting until the 4th stage...bombing makes it even easier

[Momijitsuki]

"Izzat all you got-OH SHIT"

I feel much better about my subpar skills at DOJ after watching this.

[brokenhalo]

seems like an annoying dude. very insecure.

it would be interesting to see him play dodonpachi and hear what he has to say about that game since he claims to have put a bit of time into it.

[BIL]

"Izzat all you got-OH SHIT"

I feel much better about my subpar skills at DOJ after watching this.

I got a laugh out of that bit too. Would be a great back-of-box quote. XD

[gabe]

The video does not make his personality seem terribly agreeable, but I think he's a good sport - not only for stepping outside of his comfort zone, but for allowing the whole process to be filmed and subsequently broadcast to the unforgiving internet.

[undamned]

I won't defend his JP-bashing, but honestly, that's how a good percentage of Americans would react to some strange hardware configuration or mixed text from another country. Imagine how Europe had been cursed at for driving on the other side of the road

I thought it was funny how he seemed interested in how he fared score-wise. I wouldn't be interested in my score unless I nearly cleared the thing on my first try.
-ud

[captpain]

As someone who plays shmups entirely with pads, playing DOJ on a cab just looks very unappealing to me. I think I would really prefer the joystick to be on the right since I'm a righty, even though paradoxically d-pads are always on the left and I'm fine with that.

Directions on right: some old arcade games
Directions on left: everything else ever, ever

[Rob]

More entertaining than a superplay.

[TLB]

More entertaining than a superplay.

Yup.

[Plasmo]

I thought it was funny how he seemed interested in how he fared score-wise. I wouldn't be interested in my score unless I nearly cleared the thing on my first try.

On Twin Galaxies, it's probably a new world record score. Mark Alpiger is now officially world champion of DDP DOJ with a fantastic score of over 1million points!

[Momijitsuki]

I thought it was funny how he seemed interested in how he fared score-wise. I wouldn't be interested in my score unless I nearly cleared the thing on my first try.

On Twin Galaxies, it's probably a new world record score. Mark Alpiger is now officially world champion of DDP DOJ with a fantastic score of over 1million points!

That's amazing! And only on his first try, too. He really must be an arcade god.

EDIT: Oh for crying out loud. He really would be the world record holder according to TG. I don't see a DOJ board anywhere.

I wonder why not. Are those crazy impossible Japanese games too hard?

[antron]

do any old games have the stick on the right? thought they just gave you a choice back then (buttons on both sides)

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Also, I was unaware that joysticks were ever on the right hand side, but I gather from what he said at the beginning that this used to be standard.

Alot of games use to have one joystick in the center with 2 sets of buttons on the left and right side so you could choose. I remember playing Robocop in the arcades like that. If memory serves me right alot of the classic older games were like that also.

but this is the same guy who bragged about his fingerless glove that game him super powers in marble madness if memory serves me right?

You might recall when General Consumer Electronics (GCE) debuted it's stand-alone gaming console of the famed Vectrex (circa 1982) and it's built-in controller panel with the joystick on the left and the four action buttons placed to the right of it. I'd have to say the idea of having a D-Pad setup placed to the left and the action button(s) to the right were started with famous B&W LCD based Nintendo Game & Watch portable handheld games. By adding an joystick to a full sized candy cab to the left and the action buttons to the right of it is only a natural progression of what Nintendo started with it's LCD handheld games.

What fellow shmupper Strider77 mentions about numerous American woodies-type of arcade cabinets sporting both action buttons to the right and the left of the joystick was commonplace on the arcade game titles from the early 1980s as not to alienate both righties and lefties. Don't limit the arcade controls to just a certain majority of righties as you would deprive potential profits and revenue from left-handed folks makes smart business sense any way you see it. ^_~

The original Atari VCS/2600 joysticks came with the fire button located to the right of the joystick -- which was perfect for righties and not lefties. Some 3rd-party game controller manufacters like Wico and others did make controllers with fire buttons placed on both sides of the joystick for the classic gaming consoles like the 2600, 5200, etc.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~