Legendary magazine magnate, Steve Harris, founder of Electronic Gaming Monthly and nearly one dozen other gaming publications, is no longer the world record holder on Cliff Hanger, a classic laser disc game popular in the arcades in 1983. According to Twin Galaxies, the official scorekeepers for the electronic gaming hobby, this is the first time Harris has lost a high-score title since 1983, even though he has held world records on six different titles. Now, Chip Sbrogna has come along and got history's first verified "perfect" score on Cliff Hanger, eclipsing Harris' score of 1,180,000 points attained in Kansas City, MO on November 5, 1983. Sbrogna, a software programmer specialising in daphne development in California, attained the maximum possible score on Cliff Hanger, reaching 1,310,000 points, a score originally presumed to be unreachable. See scoreboard database at
www.twingalaxies.com for more information on this score or any other world record. Attained during the 2003 Classic Gaming Expo, held August 11, 2003 in Las Vegas, Sbrogna's score was the culmination of meticulous experimentation with the game.
In a report given to Twin Galaxies, Chip said, "I actually don't remember ever seeing Cliff Hanger in the arcades when I was younger, probably due to the fact that so few machines were made. However, when I joined the daphne team around 1999, I quickly became very involved with Cliff Hanger. It didn't take long to realise that Cliff Hanger had very fixed patterns and that there was definitely a possible way to get the maximum possible score. My friend Bo Ayers (who runs Cliffhangerfan.com and owns an original Cliff cabinet) and I sat down one weekend and figured out, via lots of experimenting, which bit of the film sequence has the most number of moves between "respawn" points." Chip Sbrogna will be recognised as the new world record holder on Cliff Hanger in the forthcoming edition of Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records. As for Mr. Steve Harris? He was not available for comment and it is uncertain if he will try to regain his title. Twin Galaxies still recognises Harris as the undisputed world record holder on Swimmer, Red Alert, Popeye, Wacko and Bega's Battle - all classic games form the early 80s. Harris was one of Twin Galaxies' superstar players during the early 80s. He was a founding member of Twin Galaxies' U.S. National Video Game Team and competed in Twin Galaxies' North American Video Game Olympics, which was televised by ABC-TV's That's Incredible on February 21, 1983. In 1989 Harris founded Electronic Gaming Monthly as part of an extensive chain of magazines, which included EGM2 and Expert Gamer. Harris eventually sold the chain to Ziff-Davis in the late 90s and retired from the gaming world.
