Asteroids Record Attempt Happening Now
Watch a live video stream of virtual astronaut John McAllister's attempt at beating a 25+ year record.
By Frank Cifaldi, 04/05/2010
The world record high score for Atari's arcade classic Asteroids, which has stood for over two decades, is about to be broken.
At nearly 39 million points, Seattle native John McAllister is hours away from claiming the top slot on Twin Galaxies, the acting authority on videogame scores. The previous record of 41,336,440 by Scott Safran has remain unchallenged since November 13, 1982.
Competitive Asteroids play is more a test of endurance than skill - Safran's original high score was the result of a 60-hour marathon run. McCallister is closing in on that fast, having just surpassed 54 hours at press time.
As an arcade game, Asteroids of course has no pause button. When McCallister needs to take short breaks from the game, his only option is to simply walk away and let some of his reserved lives get eaten away.
It has been long assumed in the competitive gaming community that Safran's original record would forever remain unchallenged. "Everyone always talks about records that will never be broken," Twin Galaxy founder Walter Day told Newsweek in 2002, "well this is the one that really won't."
Unfortunately, Safran isn't around to defend his title. After a years-long search by Twin Galaxies to find Safran and honor him officially, it was discovered that he passed away in 1989, having fallen from his sixth story apartment balcony trying to rescue his cat, Samson. The posthumous award was presented instead to his family in a November 2002 ceremony.
Previous record holder Scott Safran (courtesy Wikipedia)
"This was such a family gift when we found out," Safran's aunt, Hana Safran Kramer, told the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. "It's like all of a sudden, Scott is alive again."
If McAllister were to stop now, he would hold a very comfortable third place on the official scoreboard. However, judging by the live video stream, he appears to be in good health and spirits, and should surpass the official record sometime past midnight Pacific tonight.
The live stream is below, courtesy Justin.tv.
Watch live video from johnmcallister on Justin.tv
