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A man accused of cheating at video games may lose his Guinness World Record

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A man accused of cheating at video games may lose his Guinness World Record

#4
post #2

i've never played the game, but if it's on mame, wouldn't a simple evolutionary search yield good results?

I really enjoyed watching Ben Heck trying to get a faster score with the help of Todd Rogers using simulated inputs? on the real hardware:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfXwSYzEjcE

Re: A man accused of cheating at video games may lose his Guinness World Record

#5
> Beyond the software analysis evidence, which speaks directly to Todd Rogers’s Dragster 5.51 score time

I didn't understand this sentence: it means that, looking at the code and calculating all possibilities of gear changing moments, it would be impossible to achieve 5.51 ? If so, why would any other evidence be necessary ? Or, if it wasn't such analysis (and I think that this one would be definitive), why wasn't this one done ?

Re: A man accused of cheating at video games may lose his Guinness World Record

#6

> Beyond the software analysis evidence, which speaks directly to Todd Rogers’s Dragster 5.51 score time I didn't understand this sentence: it means that, looking at the code and calculating all possibilities of gear changing moments, it would be impossible to achieve 5.51 ? If so, why would any other evidence be necessary ? Or, if it wasn't such analysis (and I think that this one would be definitive), why wasn't th…

No, it's exactly that and it was done years ago. He's just been untouchable until recently.

Re: A man accused of cheating at video games may lose his Guinness World Record

#8

> Beyond the software analysis evidence, which speaks directly to Todd Rogers’s Dragster 5.51 score time I didn't understand this sentence: it means that, looking at the code and calculating all possibilities of gear changing moments, it would be impossible to achieve 5.51 ? If so, why would any other evidence be necessary ? Or, if it wasn't such analysis (and I think that this one would be definitive), why wasn't th…

Yes, the analysis proves 5.51 is impossible, and it's been confirmed that 5.57 is the best possible time through the use of an emulator with preprogrammed inputs, meaning that it plays the game perfectly. Todd Roger's response is that the analysis failed to consider the "human element" and how the console would respond to that.

Re: A man accused of cheating at video games may lose his Guinness World Record

#9

Alternate link for people who can't be bothered defeating WAPO paywalls: https://kotaku.com/infamous-atari-player-gets-world-record-r...

Also worth pointing out the extensive writeup on Twin Galaxies (the score/records tracking site mentioned in the OP and Kotaku):

http://www.twingalaxies.com/feed_details.php/87/dragster-des...

Contains some interesting insights about the Activision's spotty history of archiving game records. The most surprising thing to me about all of this is how Dragster's creator, David Crane, feels so sure that the record is sound: "I have no doubts, then or now".

Re: A man accused of cheating at video games may lose his Guinness World Record

#10

> Beyond the software analysis evidence, which speaks directly to Todd Rogers’s Dragster 5.51 score time I didn't understand this sentence: it means that, looking at the code and calculating all possibilities of gear changing moments, it would be impossible to achieve 5.51 ? If so, why would any other evidence be necessary ? Or, if it wasn't such analysis (and I think that this one would be definitive), why wasn't th…

Exactly, they calculated the best possible time and found out that 5.51 is not even possible.

Todd Rogers however has multiple impossible scores which are still considered "records" even though they can't possibly be obtained, some of them are stupidly obvious, like games in which the score increases in steps of five, yet he has a number not evenly dividable by five and such stuff.

I guess nobody really knows why he still holds these records.

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