Who The Hell Is Demolition Stav?

Demolition Stav.

That was his name, though not, of course, his real one. That I never knew, never wanted to know as Nick and I used to stand there watching him clear wave after wave of robots with the most incredible dual joystick maneouvering that youcould possibly imagine (should you want to, of course, and I'd wager that not many of you would).

I was ten years old, maybe eleven, and we were regular frequenters of the dimly lit mecca that went by the name of Space City. In here were all manner of wonderful machines - Tempest, Dig Dug, Bubbles, Gorf, Tip Top, even a cockpit version of Star Wars.

The daddy of them all, though, was Robotron.

Just the mention of this name, Robotron, brings people of a certain age and predilection for video games out in a cold sweat, for it was, and remains, one of the hardest, most infuriating and yet most satisfying video games of all time, and Demolition Stav was the absolute master of this punishing machine.

I hadn't though about Demolition Stav for years, but last night I watched The King Of Kong, an engaging and simply fantastic documentary about one man's quest to become the owner of the world high score record on Donkey Kong.

No, come back, don't walk away! Though those of us with experience of playing video games in the darkened parlours of our youth will dig the many geek-tastic references and memories, this is a documentary that is actually not really about video games at all, but rather one man's quest to become the best at something.

Whether he succeeded, I'll let you watch the film to find out (and seriously, there are few movies that I've seen so far this year that have been quite as engaging as this one, and no, I'm not getting commission on the marketing campaign), but the name Steve Wiebe (pronouced wee-bee as he continually corrects people in the film) is one that is now as synonomous with excellence in the field of video gamin as the long lost Demolition Stav.

It's a long time since those hours spent pumping ten pences into arcade machines in the darkness of Space City, but it's funny how sometimes the most trivial of trivia pops back into your head. It's precisely these little details that makes our memories unique, though.

Ch-Ch-Changes

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur - I've finished my old job, landed a new one, and tomorrow move from Hitchin to Colchester to begin the next chapter of my life.

I couldn't be happier at the moment.

I must, due to the old last minute packing chestnut, keep this brief, but I'll be offline for a couple of weeks, so play nice while I'm gone and don't miss me too much!

See you on the other side.....