Gamertell

Product: Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2008
Price: $19.95
Pros: A good-looking book with plenty of pretty pictures, trivia and, oh yeah, some world records.
Cons: This is more a trivia book with some fan gushing (and opinions) than a catalog of game-related world records. Some of the rankings are questionably subjective and it’s missing references to a few key consoles and Apple products.
Overall: A fun coffee table book with plenty of game-related trivia but not the all-encompassing catalog of world records you’d expect from Guinness.
Score: 7 out of 10

Bragging rights. Guinness’ published world records are the ultimate catalog of bragging rights. Sure, you usually think of wacky stunts, impossibly long fingernails, really fat dudes and that one weird episode of Happy Days. Get down to it and the Guinness book of world records is all about bragging rights no matter the craziness being recorded.

Certainly, gamers are no exception to the allure of being known - though preferably respected - as the ultimate player. Bringing a well-respected entity such as Guinness into the mix should add a bit more legitimacy to otherwise braggadocios claims.

Sure, it’s an extremely interesting and entertaining read, but I’m not completely convinced the 2008 Gamer’s Edition of the Guinness World Records book does proper justice to the game industry or to world records.

Design – The book features a shiny green background that shimmers to reveal many icons of gaming (Pac Man ghosts, Pikachu, Lara Croft and Link among images of cars, explosions and sports figures) and full-color images of Mari, master Chief and a few football players on the front (the soccer players in the image above replace the American football players for the UK edition). The full title, in order of the text on the cover is Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition 2008 - The ultimate gamer’s annual. A color image of Sonic the Hedgehog is nicely positioned on the spine.

The cover stick feels like a textbook but is a bit more flimsy than that. Inside the cover is a full-bleed color montage of game characters and each page is a glossy, slightly thicker stock similar to textbooks.

Features – The book is broken into sections: Introduction, Hardware, Record-Breaking Games, Top 100 Arcade Games and Record-Breaking High Scores.

Each page of the book, no matter the topic, features several short paragraphs of information and several full-color images of games, game characters, gear or game industry professionals. The only sections that go beyond a couple sentences are the four interviews (Lil Poison, Walter Day, Tommy Tallarico and Jonathan Smith) which are all presented in straightforward Q&A format. Each subsection is divided into two facing pages focusing on a person, game or game genre.

The Intro section has a page of basic information about the book, two pages about Twin Galaxies (the group that has been tracking game scores since 1981), a Year In Games recap and a series of pages featuring the “top” games of 2007. The pages include some facts and figures about the games, although the basis for ranking the games is not made clear. Is it based on pure sales numbers, number of records or some writer’s opinion?

The Hardware section is broken into the pairs of pages with two sections for history and a section each for main game systems from the Nintendo 64 on. Here’s where some of the weird judgment calls serious start to impede on the world record aspect of the book. The books lists many firsts - the first console in a nuclear weapons conspiracy, first use of a cell processor, first handheld made by Sony and first gamer-branded PC components - which are pretty interesting and great for trivia buffs, but pretty odd for a records book. Sure, the first person to climb to the top of Everest is interesting, a record in terms of an accomplishment, but there really is no way for anyone to compete for the title of “First Sony Handheld System.”

Also, the book seems to take the acronym PC (as in “personal computer”) to mean IBM clones, skipping any mention of Apple products (though there is a a nod to the Commodore 64) which is a little surprising since so many Apple products featured computer firsts. Finally it ends with a chart of the best-selling games by platform, though it only includes 12 systems (no Ataris, Commodores, Wonderswans or even the firggin’ NES).

The biggest section of the book is the Record-Breaking Games chapter which is broken into genres, focusing on some of the most popular record-breaking games. Each genre section has an intro section that features a few records and facts, followed by pairs of pages that highlight selected record-breakign games.

Each featured game has a few facts, some specs (publisher, etc.), a quick sentence about gameplay, many cutout images, a few screenshots and several short paragraphs with facts and records. While some are pretty straightforward - best-selling, highest-grossing videogame movie, longest title - a few are pure judgment calls - highest-rated game (citing questionable web sources with morphing scores including GameRankings and MetaCritic), most violent game and most innovative use of a controller.

Following that is a section listing the so-called top 100 games. It’s not quite clear that basis for the distinction of being a “top” game - sales, ratings or some writer’s personal preferences - but it did manage to remember in the modern Golden Tee arcade game (although in the bottom half of the list).

Finally, ending the book, is a dozen pages of actual game score records. It is not anywhere near comprehensive and is a small portion of the Twin Galaxies Leaderboard. This list-y section is likely the closest thing to the expected format for a book of world records.

Overall – This book is certainly not the grandiose, be-all-end-all of videogame records. It’s as if the Guinness staff realized it’s own format was too dull to appeal to gamers, so they had to drop records in favor of flair, fun and fan adoration.

In terms of a comprehensive book of records, this rates pretty poor. It purposefully avoids lists to get in lots of quick trivia, fun facts and other interesting tidbits in a format that will appeal to attention-deficit readers. The result is not so much an official resource as a fun look into videogame trivia that offers plenty to read on the can when your handheld game systems are recharging. Definitely consider getting this as a gift for your favorite gamer for a birthday or Christmas. That way you can enjoy it before passing it on.

Baby Gamer Mini Review: My 14-month-old son cannot stop looking at this book. No matter where I put it or how far out of his reach, he wants it. The shiny green cover may be his initial attraction to it, but he can spend tens of minutes (hey, that’s a long time for a kid his age) thumbing through the pages and making monkey noises at iconic game avatars. He most often stops at the super close photo of an Xbox controller and the photo of Twin galaxies’ founder, Walter Day in his striped referee shirt (he likes to yell at Walter, for whatever reason). If going by the 14-month-old baby gamer, this is a must-buy book.

Site [Guinness world Records Gamer’s Edition 2008] Site [Twin Galaxies]