Player Is First to Master Pac-Man

Billy Mitchell, 34, became the first person to master the video arcade classic Pac-Man when he posted a score of 3,333,360 during the Fourth of July weekend at a Weirs Beach, N.H., arcade. No one ever had played a perfect Pac-Man game before, said Walter Day, chief scorekeeper for the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Score Board. Game experts call the feat a 1 in 10 billion phenomenon. To attain Pac-Man perfection, the player must navigate the yellow pie-shaped title character so it gobbles every dot, ghost, energizer and fruit on the game’s 256 boards. The winning game lasted almost six hours. Though hardly a household name, Mitchell is famous among video game and pinball players. At age 17, Mitchell set the world record in Donkey Kong, a title he still holds. Today, he holds the records for Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.