Xboxist

Lamest Guinness World Record Ever?

Alright readers, it's official: video games have gotten soft. It used to be that if you wanted to do something to impress other gamers, it had to involve impossible feats of skill, years of training, and godly amounts of raw talent. See, for example Steve Wiebe. Now, it seems that all you have to do to find your way into the Guinness Book of World Records is flop down in a beanbag chair and play a game for 24 hours straight.

That’s exactly what Kirsten Kearney and five of her friends did this weekend at the ESC Gaming Centre in Glasgow. The six players started Saturday morning and spent the next 24 hours playing Burnout Paradise continuously, swapping out when someone got tired or needed to pee (the first sign of a non-hardcore gamer). We’re not sure that the over-caffeinated Burnout Paradise was a good choice to play for a 24-hour marathon session, either. Nevertheless, at 10:00 am on Sunday 19th April, the successful record attempt culminated in an official certificate presentation by Guinness World Records adjudicators who were present to witness the achievement.

A proud, and exhausted, Kearney told the judges: "Half way through the attempt I started to doubt whether I would be able to stay awake, but as the night continued I actually became more alert, and by the time we finished I was just so excited that we'd made it into next year's Gamer's Edition with a new world record that I didn't even feel tired anymore." Phew, have a rest Kirsten, you've earned it.

While Kearney and her team are sleeping off their victory, let's break things down. 24 hours divided among six friends means that no one person was required to play longer than 6 hours in a row, basically a standard gaming session here around the GameFlavor offices. Taken thusly, it doesn't seem like an overly difficult feat to us. We find ourselves far more impressed by those guys who stayed up for 48 hours playing through every single 3D Zelda game, or the kid who did the insane 5:20 Mario speedrun on YouTube.

What do you think readers? Are we all talk and no action, or was this truly a lame way to get into the record books?

It's just like 24 Hours of Le Mans, but with Beanbag chairs.