For at least the 6th time this year, the world record on "New Tetris" for the N64 has fallen...this time due to a marathon performance. Martin Bedard, who hails from Canada, has claimed the top spot in both lines and duration with an eye-popping 64,795 lines...yes, that is sixty four THOUSAND lines...which took him a grand total of approx 12:57.36...and yes, that's twelve HOURS !! And for those interested in statistics, that is a highly respectable 83.39 lines/minute maintained throughout.

This eclipses the previous record of 26,590 lines, recently accomplished by Paul McCallon, by nearly 38,000 lines and 8 hours in duration. Earlier this year, Martin and Paul engaged in a very sportsmanlike battle of who wants-it-the-most with respect to this world record. Five times since then, the record has bounced back and forth between these two Tetris-giants, a tribute to their dedication and skill. I informed Paul of Martin's achievement and he has already congratulated Martin for the incredible score.

When I spoke with Martin about his effort, a few interesting things came out. For starters, Martin was playing while not at the best of his health...and he said there would be several times where I could gauge from the maneuvers he chose when he had a sneezing attack...and yes, there were quite a few !! And considering the speed the game reaches after 9,000 lines are completed, I'm amazed that he kept the game going for so long !!

Equally interesting is that Martin discovered the one flaw in the built-in score tracking tables...they only tally the duration up to 9:59.59 (under 10 hours), so the rest of the duration record was stop-watch timed to the nearest second, adjusting for pausing during the tape-swaps...and as marathon gamers know, special rules exist for tape-swapping that allow momentary pausing between tapes.

Martin said he finished the game a tad prematurely, about 200 lines before his intended goal of 65,000 lines. I watched his closing 1,000 lines very closely, and he was still in control at the 64,500 line mark, when suddenly things just went the wrong way, and recovery became harder and harder, until inevitability set in.

Adding to the previous submissions by both Martin and Paul, that makes a grand total of more than 24 hours of "New Tetris" videotaped submissions that I have watched in the past six months...and I guarantee that pales in comparison to the time these superb players have invested in this highly popular and hotly contested title.

So, until the record falls again, congratulations to Martin Bedard, the winner of this year's summer competition for the "New Tetris" event !!