Spot On: Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition

The legendary book of records' compilation of game factoids is due out next month; GameSpot samples some of its interesting informational tidbits.

Every gamer worth his or her salt really needs to know which gaming icon was originally going to be an armadillo, who the severed heads in the Pit in Mortal Kombat resemble, and which game Swedish pop band The Cardigans' song "My Favourite Game" is about.

These golden nuggets of gaming trivia are among many more revealed in the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, due for release on February 8 in the UK and March 11 in the US. The Gamer's Edition is the first of its kind, an offshoot from the Guinness World Records series, an annual compilation of facts and figures, including the fastest time to eat a 12-inch pizza, most sheep shorn in eight hours, and the location of the largest collection of aeroplane sick bags.

In keeping with Guinness tradition, the Gamer's Edition of its record book compiles similarly obscure (and often humorous) factoids. A semirandom sampling is listed below:

The Super Mario franchise is the best-selling game series of all time, having sold a total of 145 million units worldwide.

As of November 2007, 466 million Xbox 360 achievements had been unlocked since the service launched, putting the combined global gamerscore at 11 billion.

Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired to create the Zelda series after watching Legend, director Ridley Scott's 1985 fantasy movie about a young man's quest to prevent the Lord of Darkness from destroying daylight.

Bungie staff ate an estimated 20,000 pounds (in weight) worth of pizzas during their 36 months creating Halo 3.

Gamers playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion can expect to see 35,544 shrubs, 67,730 plants and mushrooms, 94,013 trees and logs, and 395,696 rocks.

The largest virtual beer festival takes place every year in World of Warcraft, when sworn enemies the Horde and Alliance get together for Brewfest, which lasts around a fortnight and features a huge selection of virtual beers for sale.

Sega considered an armadillo as its mascot, and Sonic the Hedgehog was originally called "Mr. Needlemouse."

Tecmo, the Japan-based publisher of Dead or Alive, was originally a supplier of cleaning equipment called Tehkan.

The severed heads seen in the Pit stage of Mortal Kombat are likenesses of developer Midway's staff, and include lookalikes of the creators of the game, Ed Boon and John Tobias.

There are an estimated 1,890 rooms to be discovered in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Tomb Raider heroine Lara Croft's ample bosom was apparently the result of a design error by Toby Gard. He was playing with the dimensions of the character and accidentally increased her bust by 150 percent. Other members of the team said they liked the change, and the change was kept.

Alone in the Dark, released in 1992, is believed to be the first 3D survival horror game.

An early arcade prototype of Street Fighter had a novel control system with a punching pad rather than buttons. However, this model was soon declared unviable; gamers hit the pads so hard they damaged them.

The youngest pro gamer is known as Lil' Poison and was signed by the Major League Gaming recruiters when he was just 6 years old. He started gaming at the tender age of 2.

The highest-ever Space Invaders score was 55,160 points, achieved by Donald Hayes on June 7, 2003.

The least-violent first-person shooter is Deus Ex, which can be completed by killing just three enemies.

The original Sonic the Hedgehog game has a limit of 9,999,990 points, and 23 people have scored this on the Xbox Live scoreboards.

There are a total of 20,000 lines of spoken dialogue in BioWare's sci-fi role-playing game Mass Effect--the same as you could expect in about 20 movies.

The most number of games made in a single series belongs to Mega Man, which has a total of 46 games out there.

Twenty homing pigeons were spray-painted with the Virtua Tennis 2 logo and released during the Wimbledon tennis championships in 2003 to promote the game.

The most-popular location for extreme sports games is New York City, which has been the backdrop for games including BMX XXX, SSX Tricky, and four games in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series.

The Cardigans' song "My Favourite Game" is actually about the game Gran Turismo, which the group liked to play on their tour bus.

The largest land-based game is The Elder Scrolls: Chapter II: Daggerfall, which has 163,492 square kilometers of space in which to jump around.

The biggest-ever funeral for a fictional object was a publicity stunt for Guitar Hero II that mourned the death of the air guitar. More than 80 people turned up for the event (including GameSpot UK's own Guy Cocker).

For more interesting trivia tidbits, pick up a copy of the Guinness World of Records Gamer's Edition when it hits bookshelves later this year.

354 Comments

  • starduke

    Posted Jun 24, 2009 10:44 am PT

    The next Elder Scrolls game should be as good as Oblivion and Morrowind and as big as Daggerfall.

  • jeffmclark1973

    Posted Feb 8, 2009 3:41 pm PT

    WEll I would like to say thank you for the acknowledgement of my hard and not so hard unlocking of achievments for this book, and I will be working on unlockng more for the next edition... and thanks to all the other achievers out there!! so you see now wehn your parents tell you what good can come out of gaming, tell the that your in the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition!!

  • Dgbleach

    Posted Feb 7, 2009 1:03 pm PT

    Woah, so much good info here. Nice.

  • neerajkumar_4

    Posted Dec 9, 2008 11:43 pm PT

    interesting...

  • foxtail55555

    Posted Nov 24, 2008 12:16 pm PT

    I'm not sure where to pick it up to where you guys can get it but I got mine at a schoolastic bookfair they held at my school.... good luck. The book was well worth the money I put into it, theese arn't just the cool facts, they have waayyyy more cooler stuff in there if u look. The book is just plain awesome ^.^

  • Trooperdx3117

    Posted Jul 17, 2008 12:55 pm PT

    Does anyone know where you can pick this up

  • Trooperdx3117

    Posted Jul 17, 2008 12:53 pm PT

    Does anyone know where you can pick this up

  • bulletwaster

    Posted Jun 27, 2008 5:49 am PT

    super noahs arc 3-d for the super nintendo is an fps but you dont kill anything

  • division_9

    Posted Jun 22, 2008 2:31 am PT

    Haha world of warcraft players are virtually drunk!.

  • daemon_dan666

    Posted Jun 18, 2008 6:41 am PT

    i'll buy

  • BarkotGamer

    Posted Jun 14, 2008 1:08 pm PT

    And also Id like to know whats the highest score and how many people reached it on TETRIS! lol

  • BarkotGamer

    Posted Jun 14, 2008 1:05 pm PT

    In my opinion (I didnt read the book yet) The most famous Gamer Band are probably DRAGONFORCE!

  • Master-David

    Posted Jun 11, 2008 10:05 pm PT

    looks pretty interesting might actually buy this

  • RPGfred

    Posted Jun 1, 2008 12:59 pm PT

    Yeah! Daggerfalls world was bigger than Britain apparantly!

  • KingDoe

    Posted May 26, 2008 7:21 pm PT

    theses facts are great stuff!!! ^_^

  • Yokuz1166

    Posted May 9, 2008 12:46 am PT

    63,000 square miles of area. That is incredible.

  • markimsoad

    Posted May 3, 2008 3:35 am PT

    oblivion rlz!!! a giant game!!!

  • SethandJeremy

    Posted Apr 22, 2008 12:40 pm PT

    THat was really interesting stuff

  • -Krakapow-

    Posted Apr 18, 2008 3:14 pm PT

    Tingle-Tuner , they propabaly took that into account but decided that you still couldn't call postal 2 the least violent fps. i mean, come on!

  • Tingle-Tuner

    Posted Mar 30, 2008 11:11 am PT

    Actually, the Deus Ex bit is incorrect, Postal 2 can be beaten without killing anybody.

  • smokerules123

    Posted Mar 30, 2008 2:13 am PT

    I also read about in the book that theres going to be a Guinness World Records game by TT(Travellers Tales). DOUBLE SWEET!!!!! I wonder if it will be a good game. We will just have to wait & see.

  • smokerules123

    Posted Mar 27, 2008 11:38 am PT

    This book is really cool. Even has a page about Mortal Kombat ^_^

  • shockster4life

    Posted Mar 24, 2008 1:22 am PT

    wow some ppl have a lot of time on their hands

  • Spartan_418

    Posted Mar 23, 2008 9:21 am PT

    I bet San Andreas is listed under "most lawsuits" or something similar.

  • andalore

    Posted Mar 19, 2008 9:49 am PT

    3 kills On Deus Ex? Wheres The Fun In that!?

  • nestea_king

    Posted Mar 16, 2008 7:32 pm PT

    @ BlueBomberZ

    Nice, would be cool if you proved them wrong. But they could have got that from an interview with him. Not EVERYTHING is on the internet.

  • andremafia

    Posted Mar 15, 2008 8:41 pm PT

    sounds very interesting

  • BlueBomberZ

    Posted Mar 4, 2008 5:43 pm PT

    "Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired to create the Zelda series after watching Legend, director Ridley Scott's 1985 fantasy movie about a young man's quest to prevent the Lord of Darkness from destroying daylight."

    I may have to make a call to their official office after this. Does anyone know of an official source where Miyamoto actually stated this? I've looked everywhere but have yet to turn up more than an unsourced internet rumor on the subject.

    When you look at things realistically, Legend was a limited release in Europe in October 1985, whilst The Legend of Zelda was released February 1986, meaning Miyamoto would've had to have physically been in Europe to see this movie and travel back to Japan to develop The Legend of Zelda from scratch in a mere 4 months. Even excluding this somewhat ambiguous rumor, Miyamoto himself said his inspiration came from his childhood experiences in Kyoto exploring the local fields and caves and getting lost in the myriad of sliding doors in his home.

    Aside from this one erroneous error, the book still looks quite Guinness-esque and will definitely bring to light some of the most obscure and tucked in the corner statistics in the gaming world.

  • ODST1

    Posted Mar 2, 2008 11:16 pm PT

    Sounds like this is an awsome book!!!

  • Mau-Justice

    Posted Feb 29, 2008 11:01 am PT

    They "accidently" increased Lara's bust 150%...yea...tell it to the judge.

  • gordanfreeman53

    Posted Feb 28, 2008 10:32 am PT

    I am totally buying this book [I am a big Guinness World of records fan.]

  • everson_rm

    Posted Feb 27, 2008 11:29 am PT

    Good to know

  • dslayer1111

    Posted Feb 24, 2008 5:59 pm PT

    Must...Get... Book.... 20,000 thousand...pizzas.... incredible..... Bungie...must be fat...

  • omegakie

    Posted Feb 23, 2008 7:00 am PT

    That's a lot of pizza

  • totalgridlock

    Posted Feb 23, 2008 2:41 am PT

    My friend picked this up the other day. From just flicking through it looks awesome

  • Lord_Tik

    Posted Feb 21, 2008 7:28 am PT

    I don't really consider Dues Ex a shooter.. More of an RPG with shooter elements. But I still might pick this book up.. Pretty interesting.

  • Revolution_Ali

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 4:31 am PT

    Mass Effect!!!!! It is awesome

  • Suicidal_KO

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 6:40 pm PT

    Wow and that wasn't even all this book ought to be worth reading. And lol i didnt start playing vid games till i was four, let alone beating them.

  • legend133

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 9:38 am PT

    MR. Needlemouse, ha. LOL xD

  • kappareign

    Posted Feb 15, 2008 3:59 am PT

    look for me in the 2009 edition

  • Ungdi

    Posted Feb 14, 2008 4:47 pm PT

    Nice to know this stuff!

  • lukiat

    Posted Feb 11, 2008 8:28 am PT

    yeah, great

  • rafbenz67

    Posted Feb 9, 2008 5:39 am PT

    nice small facts, some i pretty much knew,like the mario and mega man facts

  • thomas10soa

    Posted Feb 7, 2008 10:08 am PT

    cool

  • relset

    Posted Feb 7, 2008 12:19 am PT

    inrtersting

  • BloodMist

    Posted Feb 5, 2008 2:43 pm PT

    Hehe, those are some neat facts.And a hell of a lot of rocks.

  • sormahic

    Posted Feb 3, 2008 7:30 am PT

    WHERE IS FALLOUT??!!

  • Yogizilla

    Posted Feb 2, 2008 10:08 am PT

    This is a very neat initiative. Some of the cynics, as expected, tagged this as a useless compilation of information. I say it's very useful.. Why, you can pump up for some Trivial Pursuit, be a hit at your next geek summit, and, most importantly, it reminds you of those little games that people often take for granted.

    I wonder if there is any mention of sleeper hits and cult classics like Fallout, Herzog Zwei, Tegel's Mercenaries, Laser Squad, and Desert Commanders.. These are games that were WAY ahead of their time!

    One thing is for sure: I am definitely hankering to play Castlevania: SOTN now. I may just buy it for XBLA and have my little rare fanboy moment. BTW, Castlevania: POR is GREAT. I haven't beaten the last boss yet, just cause I want to run around and look for more secrets, on my own, first. I've uncovered about 99.1% of the map.. That .9% is killing me! Lulz

    Things like this remind us how lucky we are to be a part of a great era. These gaes all bring back fond memories. Good times, good times...

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