The New Guinness World Records, Gamer's Edition

Can you name the fastest selling Tomb Raider game? [1] The highest rated in that series? [2] The largest Tomb Raider enemy? [3] The highest grossing video game movie? [4] And how about the video game with the most official real-life stand-ins? [5]

I flunked all five in that mini-quiz, so I guess I'll be picking up a copy of the new just-released-yesterday Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition for all the answers. It purports to include thousands of high scores as tabulated by Twin Galaxies, a little record-keeping outfit situated just 76 miles southwest of me (Iowa City, Iowa) in a quintessentially midwestern little radar blip of a town called Fairfield. Don't ask me how or why in Iowa (and technically they now have representatives worldwide) but there you go.

Some of it's a little anomalous or just plain obvious, like "Only action-adventure to be banned in the UK = Manhunt 2" or "The most successful game mod and widely played online shooter = Counter-Strike," but other stuff is reasonably informative, like "What's the most popular Xbox Live demo?" [6] or educational: "Can you name the first freeform 3D action-adventure?" [7] or just plain bizarre: "What was the first gaming clan to legally bind their players to a clan?" [8]

With 256 pages of factoids and a collection of official records chronicling the epic achievements of the world's nerdiest, what are you waiting for?

[1] Tomb Raider: Legend (2006) which sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide in the first five weeks alone.

[2] Try the original Tomb Raider. No surprises there. If you never played it, I strongly recommend the recent 2007 remake, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, available for the PC (best version), Xbox 360, Wii, and PSP.

[3] The giant sea serpent in Tomb Raider: Legend. Now you know.

[4] The first Tomb Raider (2001) movie, which grossed a pretty darned respectable $275 million worldwide. That's "highest grossing video game movie" across the board. Take that Uwe "Ed Wood" Boll.

[5] Lara Croft (see the pattern here?) who's been officially portrayed by nine different models since 1996.

[6] BioShock (of course)!

[7] Try Mercenary from Novagen, published in 1986.

[8] SK Gaming, which issued contracts to Counter-Strike players on February 1, 2003.

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