If you happened to see last year's enormously entertaining documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters , which tells the surprisingly emotional story of a rivalry between two of the world's best Donkey Kong players, you might remember that the film made reference to a new entry in the series of Guinness World Records books that was slated to focus on the world of games.
That book, Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition , arrived on store shelves in North America today, and it's loaded with a wonderful array of information concerning all-time scoring records, top-selling games, and weird cultural trivia. Here are a few excerpts:
- Top-selling first-person shooter of all time: Half-Life, with more than eight million copies sold
- Fastest ever completion of Metal Gear Solid: 1 hour, 55 minutes, 31 seconds
- Hottest female fighting game character (according to a poll of serious martial arts enthusiasts): Tekken's Nina Williams
- Most expensive game ever produced: Shenmue, for Dreamcast, which came in at a reported $70M (?!)
- Lowest grossing game-based movie: 2005's Alone in the Dark, by German game-to-film schlockmeister Uwe Boll, which earned a paltry $5M
- First gaming clan to legally bind its members: CounterStrike's SK Gaming
- First game to receive a Mature rating from the ESRB: Doom
- Most expensive flight simulator cockpit: A $300,000 seat custom built for an Australian trucking tycoon
Flipping through the volume's 256 pages is fiercely addictive. Did you know Mario has appeared in 116 games to date? Or that it wasn't until 1998 that the video game world had its first black action adventure hero in Eidos' Akuji the Heartless, released for the original PlayStation?
And I couldn't help but wonder as I read if perhaps I had ever broken some of the official records listed in the book. I know that I never have and never will be able to finish the original Super Mario Bros. in five minutes flat, as some fellow named Andrew Garkidis apparently has, but I'd sure like to try running through Halo's Pillar of Autumn level on Legendary difficulty-I think I might have a legitimate shot at cracking Cody Miller's record of five minutes, 51 seconds.
Actually, why wonder? Time to go find out...as soon as I pry myself away from this book.