The gaming-centered Guinness World Records for 2011 is released to retailers today. Why don’t we check out some of the interesting tidbits found inside?
Says World Records Gaming editor Gaz Deaves, “It’s been another great year for gaming, with incredible records broken by players from all walks of life. Gaming has become a hugely important part of popular culture and this year’s Gamer’s Edition reflects just that.”
It is pretty clear that it has been, with the book — now in its 4th edition — updating or adding new categories to 90% of the records.
This year there is a 76 year difference between the oldest record-holder and the youngest. The oldest is a man in Wisconsin, John Bates, who is 85 years old. Having never picked up a video game, he decided to try out WiiSports when it was given to him as a gift 2 years ago. Being an avid real-life bowler, he fell in love with WiiSports Bowling. Since then he achieved the record of “Most Perfect Games” with 2,850 perfect scores.
The youngest is a 9-year-old resident of Tokyo, Japan. Ryota Wada now holds the record for “Youngest Gamer to Achieve a Perfect ‘AAA’ Score on Dance Dance Revolution”.
In other gaming records, a young woman in California named Annie Leung holds the record for “Highest Score on Guitar Hero 3 for a Female Gamer,” with 789,349 points. Unfortunately that was the only woman I could find on the records from the press release, but I would really like to see how many female gamers out there were able to get some recognition. You go, ladies!
Some marathon records were also released, “The Longest Video Game Marathon of a Dance/Rhythm Game” was over 13 1/2 hours (talk about a major work-out!). “Longest Video Games Marathon on a First Person Shooter” was 33 hours and the longest for a racing game was 30 hours.
In related marathon news, Sony and LittleBigPlanet 2 are attempting to break 5 world records to celebrate the release of the game and the Guinness World Records Gaming book. The event lasted from January 17th until yesterday. No word yet on if the records were broken.
Some other interesting records:
- Most Consecutive Wins Against Human Opponents in Street Fighter IV: 169
- Largest Collection of Super Mario Memorabilia: 5,400 individual items
- Video Game with the Most Swearing: 2005’s Scarface on the PS2 with over 5,000 expletives
- Most Popular Facebook Game: Farmville with over 60 MILLION active users per month
The 2011 Edition also polled 13,000 gamers to settle an age-old question; who is the Best Videogame Character of All Time?
Nintendo walked away victorious, with 11 of their characters in the Top 50 and Mario winning the honor of Best Videogame Character of All Time. Legend of Zelda’s Link came in second and Master Chief from Halo came in third. Sony had 6 characters in the Top 50 and Capcom had 5.
If you are interested in picking up the book, you can find it in paperback on Amazon for $8.60.
[via Reuters]
[via Videogamer]
[via QuickJump]
[via NerdReactor]