Going for the high score is supposed to be stressful. Beads of sweat might blur your vision. The game might throw every dirty little trick it has at you. Maybe your hand gets cramped and you can't move it for a few seconds?! Dear God, please! No, I need to go right! Please NOOOOO!!!
These unbelievable high scores go above and beyond anyone else all in the hopes that they can input A-S-S for their initials and everyone will laugh. Then people will think about how cool that player is. Also, for the love of the game.
999,999 – Tetris (NES)
That's all it takes to get the world record score in the NES version of classic puzzle game Tetris. It doesn't seem so hard, does it? You do what you always do: stack a bunch of garbage on one side, save a sliver so the long piece nets you the most points for every line cleared. Oh yeah, if it's so easy, why didn't you do it?
Because stuff inevitably gets messed up and then you're stuck trying to clean garbage a million Tetris-miles an hour! The most important skill in lining blocks on your TV up nicely is knowing how to use pieces to come back and clean up your mess. I like Tetris a lot and played an unhealthy (see it in the world around you, dream about it) amount of the DS version, but I could never do this on NES.
Take this chance and watch the ending "cutscene" before you die, just so you know what it's like. If you're really discrete about it, I bet you could get away with telling everyone else you got the high score on the Amiga version of Tetris. There are a million versions of Tetris out there, and really, no one is going to actually go to Twin Galaxies and check.
This gif of Snake shows how you could possibly fill up the entire screen and beat the game with the highest possible score… ever. Anyone with a Nokia "Brick" phone from 1998 will remember Snake, but there have been countless renditions of the game on different platforms. This came from a Russian forum, so after watching we can assume that no, in Soviet Union, pellet does not eat you.
What's unbelievable about this particular score is that anyone actually bothered to do this. Do you see the games we have on phones these days? Who gives a crap?! I think I played Snake for about two minutes before I realized enjoying the scenery around me was more fun and the scenary around me was paint drying.
I guess it's in keeping with our theme of things you might never have done, except for that one guy who wanted to brag about how he actually did.
8000+ Flags in Survival – Plants vs. Zombies (PC)
Everyone knows that Cob Cannons, Puff Shrooms, and frozen watermelon launchers are your best bet at defeating the zombie horde in Survival Mode, but I don't know anyone willing to keep playing the game into 8000 waves of Plants vs. Zombies warfare. TheHardinero is and honestly it's your decision to take him on. Don't put that on me when you're spun out on nutrient-enriched soil and your computer has caught fire trying to render a thousand zombies at once.
I entered the series when PopCap released PvZ on Xbox 360, but I never thought an 8000th wave existed. I nabbed the achievement for like 70, and called it a day. Doesn't it get to a point where you're just clicking to launch corn at a few zombies and you think, "What am I doing with my life?" That's when I stop and play another game.
Perfect Score, Rio Competition – Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
Tony Hawk was for skater kids everywhere. Well, it was for kids who wanted to skate, thought skating was cool, and uhh, you know just wanted to fit in too. It was for lots of kids but we all know who we were in the great poser-skater feuds of the '90s.
I'll always find this score in the Rio competition unbelievable for one thing. This player really showed those computer judges what he thought of their fun community competition. "99.9 twice in a row, huh? From every judge? I deserved a perfect score, man. Screw this, I'm sitting out my last heat."
And he still won.
23,040 Meters – Canabalt
I've never played Canabalt on anything other than an iPhone, so maybe this isn't that big of a deal to you, but I can't get much farther past a second pair of glass panes. TimmyAkmed, the youtube user who posted this score even jumps when he doesn't have to. Someone's trying to show off, Timmy!
What makes this score truly unbelievable is that it only takes about 9 minutes. That's just like the Tetris high score! That is too weird. If the next game does that too I'm gonna freak out.
Every Chaos Emerald – Sonic the Hedgehog
Seriously, how the hell do you do this? I have been playing this game for over two decades at this point. Even if I were to gnaw on the Genesis controller like a baby, I'd be closer to obtaining all of these than if I actually tried. I always fall into the goal. I didn't even know there were gems to collect in those stages for a while!
But getting each one isn't quite that unbelievable, so why don't we throw in the whole "this player actually does land in the goal several times" thing? What's up with that? It's as if this is the internet and now people brag about stuff that isn't true because they know they can get away with it.
I drive a Ferrari by the way.
Anytime anyone says "We got a kill screen coming up…" – Donkey Kong (Arcade)
By now everyone with even a passing interest in video games has heard about the squabbling over the Donkey Kong world record. Hell, they made a movie about it! You could argue that more than any other game, Donkey Kong drives people to go for the high score.
But that's not what makes this score run by current champion Hank Chien (though the video's title says "former") unbelievable. What's unbelievable about the high scores on Donkey Kong are the scorers themselves. What drew these incredibly different, obviously neurotic people together? Was it a monkey? Was it the monkey's tie? Please tell me at least one of them actually thought about Pauline's plight in all this.
Got at least an anecdotal account of an unbelievable high score? Tell us in the comments!
