By Phil Day
I’ve haven’t been in North America for the past two months, and in that time a lot has happened: A Tron off; a new doubles Joust world record, Donkey Kong has changed hands – again! And my own world record is no more. But as I was packing my bag for a wedding in India I interviewed classic arcade game extraordinaire John McAllister: Asteroids (marathon) World Champion, Joust (marathon) World Champion, and Robotron (5 lives) World Champion, and about another 10 or more world records on classic arcade games, but it was the aforementioned three games that interested me most. I wanted to talk to John about the time length of games and different skill sets required. His answers, which are short (John’s not a man of many words, he’s very much to the point), got me thinking about a few things I’d read in the past, so please bare with me as I introduce two medical practitioners – an Australian, and an American.
Australian brain surgeon Dr Charlie Teo is known for his surgery on what many other surgeons around the world would see as inoperable. Some of his contemporaries see him as brilliant, even a hero. While others see him as a reckless maverick offering false hope to his patients. The brain surgery Dr Teo performs require many hours. In an interview with Andrew Denton on ABC TV’s Enough Rope.
Denton: Thank you you’ve just come from a hard day at the brain is that right?
Dr Teo: Ah that’s right.
Denton: How many operations have you done today?
Dr Teo: We just did the one operation on a little girl and took out three well actually a total of eight tumors out of her brain, but three of them were quite large and the rest were relatively small ones.
Denton: And how long was that operation?
Denton: We started at 7:30, finished at about two o’clock so what’s that yeah about five, five hours all up, five and a half hours.
Denton: Not a particularly long operation?
Dr Teo: No.
Denton: No. What’s the longest operation you’ve ever had?
Dr Teo: Ah 26 hours.
I have a good deal of difficulty sitting through a movie without a toilet break, obviously not a problem for Dr Teo. There is a book about Dr Teo’s unique skills: Life in his Hands. The book discusses many things about his life as a brain surgeon, including his strict exercise routine. Dr Teo needs to be fit to sustain a focussed mind and a steady set of hands. He keeps fit by doing various activities including intense rowing. Let me tell you John’s hours of alertness, and his exercise routine.
John’s Joust world record was 50 plus hours, and his Asteroids world record was 57 plus hours. The strange thing about this is the casualness John has in regard to these ridiculous lengths of consciousness. The British Medical Journal published a study in 2000 having done extensive research in Australia and New Zealand on the sleep deprived skills of drivers in cars. Researchers found that people who drove after being awake for 17–19 hours were worst drivers than those who had a blood alcohol level of .05 percent (the legal limit for drunk driving in Australia). After 21 hours of being awake and driving the equivalent performance as a driver was that of a driver with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent – this is the blood alcohol limit in the country where I’m currently domiciled– Canada. Logic suggests that John could be well drunk and still beat most ‘ordinary’ people at his game of choice.
I asked John if he had any daylight hallucinations, or giddiness, anything that might suggest it was time to go to bed when he played for world record marathon scores (I also wanted to find something that suggested he was an ‘ordinary’ person like the rest of us). He said: “I would see a shadow out of the corner of my eye.”
I’ve had sleep deprivation; I was at university at the time, I was working pretty hard. I think the worst hallucination I had was when I smelt the room for a friend’s mother, and then looked for her in a pile of clothes next to the bed. I don’t think I had slept much for a couple of weeks – I was in no condition to play any video games, and I certainly wasn’t fit to drive a car). I’m amazed at John’s ability to stay awake and concentrate for hours – days – on end. I don’t understand how he does it. I’ve met John, he looks fit, but maybe he did more exercise than I thought, but no. He does very little. So little in fact it hardly seems worth mentioning. He said: “I do cardio. I went for a ride for half an hour a day, for about week before the Joust game. For Asteroids I walked an hour a day.”
I still find his responses weird as I write this, especially after meeting Joel West at the 2010 Big Band. Joel was getting ready for an attempt at the world record on Frenzy, a marathon that would require about two days of staying awake. Joel was on a diet of barley sugar and water to shrink his stomach in preparation for the game. This way hunger wouldn’t distract him, and presumably toilet breaks (he looked at lot thinner than he does in Chasing Ghost). John does none of that. “Nope. I eat the whole time.” he said.
Now I know that the type of surgery Dr Teo performs doesn’t allow for any error, nor does driving a car (rarely). It’s not as if you get five lives in either of these tasks, and you don’t get bonus lives for performing particularly well. Nevertheless, there is, apparently, a link between video games and surgery. Enter the American medical man: Dr. James ‘Butch’ Rosser of Beth Israel Medical.
In an article titled: Surgeons may err less by playing video games. The reason surgeon may ‘err’ less thanks to video games, Dr Rooser argues, is that much of today’s surgery involves minute incisions into the body, inserting little camera inside sending images to a video screen, and the surgical tools are controlled remotely by the doctor while watching the screen. Video game enthusiasts, does this sound somewhat familiar? Dr Rosser believes there is a useful link. He believes playing games like Super Monkey Ball game can help hone the necessary skills for surgeons today, I quote: “This is a nice, wholesome game. No blood and guts. But I need the same kind of skill to go into a body and sew two pieces of intestine together.” If this is true, the type of skill he’s talking about on a game like Super Monkey Ball couldn’t possibly be more difficult than Robotron. Not a chance.
John Robotron (five lives only) world record score of 1,236,950 points took only 11minutes. He was the first person to officially pass one million points on this setting. That’s how insanely difficult this game is. If you can stay alive for 12 minutes there’s a good chance you will have past his score. 11 minutes! The new world record score on Donkey Kong took over two hours. For those of you who read these articles and don’t know Robotron it requires two 8-way joysticks, one for movement and one for firing. Personally, I think Williams made the greatest games of the Golden Era, and I personally think Robotron is the most difficult game that Williams produced in that era. There are no safe spots, there is no point pressing, there are no patterns to learn by rote. It really is a game of steady hands and quick decision (for those of you who think Defender is a better and more difficult Williams game, well, John is ranked 3rd ).
Now you’re probably wondering where I’m going with all this medical stuff meets video games. I’m not suggesting that John should go and start performing root canal therapy on any of us who don’t want to fork out the dollars, nor am I suggesting he remove his own kidney should it give him any trouble. But I am suggesting that credit should be given where credit is due. Combining John’s epic ability to remain awake and functioning for excessive hours (days), and his amazing skill set with a joystick, may not give him recognition by any medical practitioners in the world, or by any medical colleges, or hospitals, or journals, but, I would like someone to give him a PhD of sorts for his continued research into higher point scoring of classic video games. Dr McAllister, I think you’ve earned it.
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| My hero for his score on Robotron |
I’ve haven’t been in North America for the past two months, and in that time a lot has happened: A Tron off; a new doubles Joust world record, Donkey Kong has changed hands – again! And my own world record is no more. But as I was packing my bag for a wedding in India I interviewed classic arcade game extraordinaire John McAllister: Asteroids (marathon) World Champion, Joust (marathon) World Champion, and Robotron (5 lives) World Champion, and about another 10 or more world records on classic arcade games, but it was the aforementioned three games that interested me most. I wanted to talk to John about the time length of games and different skill sets required. His answers, which are short (John’s not a man of many words, he’s very much to the point), got me thinking about a few things I’d read in the past, so please bare with me as I introduce two medical practitioners – an Australian, and an American.
Australian brain surgeon Dr Charlie Teo is known for his surgery on what many other surgeons around the world would see as inoperable. Some of his contemporaries see him as brilliant, even a hero. While others see him as a reckless maverick offering false hope to his patients. The brain surgery Dr Teo performs require many hours. In an interview with Andrew Denton on ABC TV’s Enough Rope.
Denton: Thank you you’ve just come from a hard day at the brain is that right?
Dr Teo: Ah that’s right.
Denton: How many operations have you done today?
Dr Teo: We just did the one operation on a little girl and took out three well actually a total of eight tumors out of her brain, but three of them were quite large and the rest were relatively small ones.
Denton: And how long was that operation?
Denton: We started at 7:30, finished at about two o’clock so what’s that yeah about five, five hours all up, five and a half hours.
Denton: Not a particularly long operation?
Dr Teo: No.
Denton: No. What’s the longest operation you’ve ever had?
Dr Teo: Ah 26 hours.
I have a good deal of difficulty sitting through a movie without a toilet break, obviously not a problem for Dr Teo. There is a book about Dr Teo’s unique skills: Life in his Hands. The book discusses many things about his life as a brain surgeon, including his strict exercise routine. Dr Teo needs to be fit to sustain a focussed mind and a steady set of hands. He keeps fit by doing various activities including intense rowing. Let me tell you John’s hours of alertness, and his exercise routine.
John’s Joust world record was 50 plus hours, and his Asteroids world record was 57 plus hours. The strange thing about this is the casualness John has in regard to these ridiculous lengths of consciousness. The British Medical Journal published a study in 2000 having done extensive research in Australia and New Zealand on the sleep deprived skills of drivers in cars. Researchers found that people who drove after being awake for 17–19 hours were worst drivers than those who had a blood alcohol level of .05 percent (the legal limit for drunk driving in Australia). After 21 hours of being awake and driving the equivalent performance as a driver was that of a driver with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent – this is the blood alcohol limit in the country where I’m currently domiciled– Canada. Logic suggests that John could be well drunk and still beat most ‘ordinary’ people at his game of choice.
I asked John if he had any daylight hallucinations, or giddiness, anything that might suggest it was time to go to bed when he played for world record marathon scores (I also wanted to find something that suggested he was an ‘ordinary’ person like the rest of us). He said: “I would see a shadow out of the corner of my eye.”
I’ve had sleep deprivation; I was at university at the time, I was working pretty hard. I think the worst hallucination I had was when I smelt the room for a friend’s mother, and then looked for her in a pile of clothes next to the bed. I don’t think I had slept much for a couple of weeks – I was in no condition to play any video games, and I certainly wasn’t fit to drive a car). I’m amazed at John’s ability to stay awake and concentrate for hours – days – on end. I don’t understand how he does it. I’ve met John, he looks fit, but maybe he did more exercise than I thought, but no. He does very little. So little in fact it hardly seems worth mentioning. He said: “I do cardio. I went for a ride for half an hour a day, for about week before the Joust game. For Asteroids I walked an hour a day.”
I still find his responses weird as I write this, especially after meeting Joel West at the 2010 Big Band. Joel was getting ready for an attempt at the world record on Frenzy, a marathon that would require about two days of staying awake. Joel was on a diet of barley sugar and water to shrink his stomach in preparation for the game. This way hunger wouldn’t distract him, and presumably toilet breaks (he looked at lot thinner than he does in Chasing Ghost). John does none of that. “Nope. I eat the whole time.” he said.
Now I know that the type of surgery Dr Teo performs doesn’t allow for any error, nor does driving a car (rarely). It’s not as if you get five lives in either of these tasks, and you don’t get bonus lives for performing particularly well. Nevertheless, there is, apparently, a link between video games and surgery. Enter the American medical man: Dr. James ‘Butch’ Rosser of Beth Israel Medical.
In an article titled: Surgeons may err less by playing video games. The reason surgeon may ‘err’ less thanks to video games, Dr Rooser argues, is that much of today’s surgery involves minute incisions into the body, inserting little camera inside sending images to a video screen, and the surgical tools are controlled remotely by the doctor while watching the screen. Video game enthusiasts, does this sound somewhat familiar? Dr Rosser believes there is a useful link. He believes playing games like Super Monkey Ball game can help hone the necessary skills for surgeons today, I quote: “This is a nice, wholesome game. No blood and guts. But I need the same kind of skill to go into a body and sew two pieces of intestine together.” If this is true, the type of skill he’s talking about on a game like Super Monkey Ball couldn’t possibly be more difficult than Robotron. Not a chance.
John Robotron (five lives only) world record score of 1,236,950 points took only 11minutes. He was the first person to officially pass one million points on this setting. That’s how insanely difficult this game is. If you can stay alive for 12 minutes there’s a good chance you will have past his score. 11 minutes! The new world record score on Donkey Kong took over two hours. For those of you who read these articles and don’t know Robotron it requires two 8-way joysticks, one for movement and one for firing. Personally, I think Williams made the greatest games of the Golden Era, and I personally think Robotron is the most difficult game that Williams produced in that era. There are no safe spots, there is no point pressing, there are no patterns to learn by rote. It really is a game of steady hands and quick decision (for those of you who think Defender is a better and more difficult Williams game, well, John is ranked 3rd ).
Now you’re probably wondering where I’m going with all this medical stuff meets video games. I’m not suggesting that John should go and start performing root canal therapy on any of us who don’t want to fork out the dollars, nor am I suggesting he remove his own kidney should it give him any trouble. But I am suggesting that credit should be given where credit is due. Combining John’s epic ability to remain awake and functioning for excessive hours (days), and his amazing skill set with a joystick, may not give him recognition by any medical practitioners in the world, or by any medical colleges, or hospitals, or journals, but, I would like someone to give him a PhD of sorts for his continued research into higher point scoring of classic video games. Dr McAllister, I think you’ve earned it.
This was a very fascinating read, Phil, thank you for typing it and sharing it with me (Daniel from A & C)!
ReplyDeleteWow and I thought that I was a hardcore gamer, John takes it to whole new level, absolutely amazing!
He probably could have single-handedly saved Nintendo, by working overtime answering calls on their gaming hotline back at the height of the NES era, during the late 80s to early 90s. I bet that he possessed all of the killer strategies to boot!
He definitely deserves a Video Gaming Masters Degree, however I'm not so sure about presenting him with a Medical Degree though haha :).
I mean, staying up for that long just can't be healthy! The consumate doctor takes great care of others, as well as himself/herself, or should at least make the effort to do so.
The longest amount of time that I dedicated to a game in one sitting was about six hours, but I obviously took breaks during the ending and credits haha :).