Guinness World Records: The Videogame

If there was a world record for the number of times one man has watched Return of The Jedi, Ben Parfitt would more likely than not be able to call himself a world beater. He takes a look at Warner’s new Nintendo release...

When Guinness World Records first started touted the upcoming gaming version of its popular compendium, many wondered what exactly it would fill its pages with.

Obviously, there’s good old-fashioned high scores, of which there are plenty, such as William Willemstyn III’s high score of 1,023,040 on the GameCube version of Ikaruga or Henru Wang’s 100 per cent completion of Metroid Prime in two hours and 19 minutes.

There are also lots of genre-by-genre achievements recognised by the body. For instance, did you know that Atari currently holds four Guinness World Records in the racing genre for the first ever first person driving game (Night Driver), the first racing game to support force feedback (Hard Drivin’), the most ported racing game (Pole Position) and longest running racing series (Test Drive).

As for the shooting genre, Eidos’ Deus EX holds the world record for being the least violent first person shooter, owing to the fact that it’s possible to complete the game having killed only three enemies. And Ubisoft’s Requiem: Avenging Angel was the first ever title to feature bullet time.

Warner has opted not to stick faithfully to the gaming theme with this debut console outing for the brand, however, and has instead opted to encompass the entire spectrum of world recording into the title. Translating all of this into a game might seem like a daunting task, so it’s pleasing to see that TT Games, the studio behind LEGO Star Wars, is on the case.

The game allows for solo play and for multiplayer action and offers 40 different stunts based on an assortment of actual World Records, including the likes of watermelon crushing, plane eating and sheep shearing.

More impressively, the title also reportedly offers users the chance to be listed in the official real-life Guinness World Records book if you get connected to the internet and top the global high score tables.

Given the huge annual sales of the book, the game incarnation is sure to raise eyebrows at retail next month.