The new world champion doesn't live in a mansion.

He doesn't wear a championship belt.

And he's not likely to be spotted on a red carpet anytime soon.

Where Mark Little can be spotted - sometimes for several hours at a time - is in his basement, playing arcade games that haven't been popular since the 1980s.

Now, Little has something to show for his hard work.

The 25-year-old electronics technician from New Britain this summer broke a 19-year-old world record for the highest documented score in the arcade game "Spy Hunter."

After totaling more than 800,000 points while playing the car-chase game in late June, Little sent a videotape of his performance to Twin Galaxies, the organization responsible for maintaining high-score records for video games.

Twin Galaxies verified Little's score and will include him in its next book of world records, due out later this year.

"It's kind of an exciting moment," Little says.

It was a moment a long time in the works.

Born and raised in Doylestown, Little says he started playing video games before he entered kindergarten.

He liked Atari, the most popular game system at the time. But he always had more appreciation for arcade games, which he played every chance he got.

"Every time we'd go to the store, I used to mooch quarters off my mom and grandma," Little says.

He played classic titles, such as "Donkey Kong," "Pacman," "Ms. Pacman" and "Spy Hunter."

It wasn't the plot or graphics, but the opportunity to compete directly against others that drew the youngster to the arcades.

"Basically it was a chance ... to get out and pit your skills against everybody else in your local neighborhood and local arcade for the chance to get your name on top of the scoreboard," he says. "It was kind of a high when you would see that you knocked down everybody that was best in your neighborhood."

The arcade became the place to go for many children of the 1980s looking to make a name for themselves and gain respect.

"The age of video-game arcades was a seriously big phenomenon," says Walter Day, who edits Twin Galaxies' book of world records. "I'll bet a million people across the world were vying for the world record in 'Spy Hunter' and other games."

Gamers formed their own subculture, trading secrets and codes that were helpful in beating games.

Tricks and tips "would proliferate like osmosis," Day says.

Even with all the competition and cooperation, the world record in "Spy Hunter" stalled at 794,495, a mark Brian McDowell, then of Harrells, N.C., set in June 1984.

Day says he doesn't keep in contact with McDowell and doesn't know where the former record holder lives. Most people gave up trying to beat his mark a long time ago.

But not Little.

He bought the game about three and a half years ago and started playing it in his basement. Around the beginning of April, he began a regimen of playing for at least an hour and a half each night, hoping to earn second place on the all-time high-score list.

"I would basically just lock myself away from everybody, really try to focus on the game and really take a shot at it," Little says.

After about a month and a half, the longtime video-game player captured second-place honors, but he decided to keep up his intensive playing.

And almost 19 years to the day after McDowell set his seemingly unbreakable record, Little broke it.

The big game started with Little dodging enemies and scoring more points early on than most "Spy Hunter" aficionados total in an entire game.

Little cruised until he lost his second-to-last car at the 758,000-point mark.

Less than 40,000 points shy of the world record, he drove onward, while computer-animated helicopters and cars tried to derail his moment of glory.

"When you're that far ahead in the game, the game pretty much has no mercy on you," Little says. "The original designers of this game never wanted somebody to be able to play this game for over an hour and a half on one quarter."

But Little defied their wishes and dodged just enough enemies to score 832,620 points and set a world record.

"This is quite an accomplishment," says Robert Mruczek, who verified Little's score for Twin Galaxies. "He has mastered an extremely difficult game, and he currently has no viable competition."

Except himself.

Little says he eventually wants to score more than 1 million points, though he is going to take some time off from "Spy Hunter."

He will still be playing video games, however.

With 12 other titles in his basement, including pinball machines, Little has more than enough games to keep himself occupied.

He started collecting games about seven years ago by purchasing a machine from a bowling alley. After buying the games, he restores them to their original form, sometimes spending as much as 100 hours in the rehabbing process.

Little says the time is well spent and believes video games can have a therapeutic effect.

"It's a great way to just escape from the daily stress," he says.

Day agrees that the games have an upside, but he worries about their harmful effects as well.

Too many children grow up playing too many hours of games with too much violence, he says.

"It simply can't be good to be ingesting that many rays from a screen," Day says. "I don't believe that a person should just be playing video games."

Little says he understands the games have to be viewed in the proper perspective.

But that won't stop him from playing.

"Where else for a quarter could you throw the winning touchdown in a football game?" he says. "Or play basketball with some of the NBA stars? Or drive down a road going 200 mph without having to worry about a ticket?

"As with anything else, you do realize that once your game's over, you go back into reality. But it's nice to escape every once in a while."

Jesse Abrams-Morley can be contacted via e-mail at jmorley@phillyburbs.com.