It seems all videogame doctors have a grand agenda: Dr. Neo Cortex wants to take over the world using mutated animals; Dr. Robotnik wants to take over the world using animals as robots; Dr. Wily wants to take over the world using animal-shaped robots; Dr. Mario wants to fool the world into thinking he’s a real doctor; Dr. Hank Chien wants to play Donkey Kong.
Chien, a plastic surgeon from Flushing, Queens, recently broke the world’s all-time high score on Donkey Kong. This incredible accomplishment also puts his hometown back on the map, as it has faded into obscurity since The Nanny went off the air. Chien’s score of 1,061,700 is a whopping 160,800 points higher than the score of now-fifth-place champion Ike Hall, who I mention because I think his name sounds pretty cool. Ike Hall. Also, top-scoring players like Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe get all the attention, even though tenth-place guys like Tim Jackson are still 760,000 points more awesome than most of us could hope to be. Curse you, pie factory!
…But I digress. Hank Chien appears to be handling his victory quite modestly, which is refreshing in a world where you can hardly turn on your television without hearing someone brag about their Donkey Kong score, assuming your television is playing that Donkey Kong documentary on continuous loop. Indeed, Hank Chien seems to be a pretty humble guy who’s just excited to hold the monkey crown for a little while. I managed to track down his contact information, and I held a brief phone interview with the new chimp champ.
“I’m not Hank Chien,” he told me.
Modest to the last.
[Sources: Asylum.com; Twin Galaxies]
