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Q*bert world record broken after 30 years

The cussin' little alien has had two records broken this week, with gamer George Leutz playing for over 80 hours to break a record that was set in 1983.

Michelle Starr Science editor
Michelle Starr is CNET's science editor, and she hopes to get you as enthralled with the wonders of the universe as she is. When she's not daydreaming about flying through space, she's daydreaming about bats.
Michelle Starr

(Credit: Atari)

The cussin' little alien has had two records broken this week, with gamer George Leutz playing for over 80 hours to break a record that was set in 1983.

Leutz is no stranger to Q*bert. In fact, he has been trying to break the world record for quite some time, making at least three attempts in the past. Hopefully, this will be his last.

On 14 February, Leutz and his fellow competitor Ed Heemskerk set out to beat the score set three decades ago by a mysterious man called Rob Gerhardt. His score? 33,273,520 million points. And, when you consider that it was estimated to take a player at least 70 hours to top it, Gerhardt's score seemed almost impossible to beat.

Heemskerk didn't quite make it, ending his game at 63 hours, four minutes and 28,870,165 points, not even meeting his previous world record for the longest time played, at 68.5 hours.

Leutz, however, continued playing for over 20 hours, finally wrapping up at 84 hours and 48 minutes on 12.38am, Monday, 18 February 2013. His final score was 37,163,080.

Q*bert is serious business.

Via www.examiner.com