Guinness World Records: The Videogame Wii Review

There’s probably more mini game collections on the Wii than there is anything else, whilst this may be an exaggeration, there’s certainly a coming together of them on the shelves, perhaps in a bid to appear in the Guinness Book of Records for most shelf space covered. Guinness World Records: The Videogame is, unsurprisingly, yet another mini game collection, although it’s certainly one of the better efforts.

Most of us are aware of the Guinness Book of Records, where world records range from the decent to the downright insane. The videogame version is exactly what you would expect, with the aim being to do some silly things (ripping up phone books, chomping on cockroaches, burping, and tossing a cowpat amongst them) and hopefully become a record holder of some form.

Sadly, support for Mii’s is not included, although there’s eight avatars included that you can alter the look and names of. The avatars themselves are appealing enough, but it’s still a disappointment that we aren’t allowed to use our readymade Mii’s.

Mii disappointments aside, the presentation is lovely and rather than a basic menu screen, you’ll be selecting mini games by walking around a pleasant 3D globe (complete with mini boats, mini air balloons and mini whales). In a nice touch each country is displayed by a landmark, whilst each has three mini games for you to attempt to smash the records of.

There’s a grand total of 36 mini games, and, in a nice surprise, few of them are actually bad enough to run away from. Longest burp has you guiding a line of bubbles through the stomach, being careful as to not hit the side, thus bursting a bubble. Tallest building tasks you with completing each floor of a building by placing objects so as they fit together correctly. The retro styled, Highest Videogame Score shooter would be a great game to have been included on WiiWare, never mind a mini game collection. The Land Speed record has you holding the remote horizontally and avoiding rocks as your vehicle builds up speed, I could go on and on, but I won’t.

The game can obviously be played in multiplayer for up to four players and as it remembers the best score on the console for each mini game, friends and family will be battling it out to become the best, or at least to beat their own personal records. It was also a great idea to include worldwide leaderboards, with regional, national and worldwide records for each game. It’s all laid out so well, too, as the game only informs you of each record holder, rather than an endless list of names.

Guinness World Records: The Videogame looks and sounds appealing with its bright and bold visual style and its cheery music, but more importantly it plays very well indeed. The game has a nice choice of 36 mini games, great controls and the addictiveness of breaking not only your own personal records, but the records of others as well. All in all it’s a Christmas treat.