Top 9 gaming records

The Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer's Edition is on sale now and we've been picking out the best and worst moments for your pleasure. From the genuinely impressive to the slightly eccentric, these are our nine favourite gaming records...

FIRST GRAPHIC ADVENTURE TO BECOME A STAGE PLAY

OK, so this is a pretty niche record and kind of wins by default when you consider Myst would suck big time as a play, but kudos to US Student Chris Heady. The Monkey Island fan and part-time thesp organised a live version of Secret of Monkey Island at his school in Columbia, Maryland, USA in 2005. Creators, LucasArts even gave their blessing to the production. You can cringe through its entirety on YouTube, but here's a clip...

LONGEST GAME OF SPACE INVADERS

Back before kids were discouraged to play videogames Canadian 12 year old Eric Furrer settled down for a mammoth session of Space Invaders for pseudo-fame. From the 2nd September 1980 Furrer clocked an impressive 38 hour 30 minute stint firing a line of pixels into a bunch of pixels that vaguely looked like aliens. Eric even had a special pause button installed into the Space Invader until so he could have much-needed toilet breaks in between bouts of saving the planet.

FIRST COUNTRY TO BAN ALL VIDEO-GAMES

On 30 July 2002 the Greek government voted in favour proposition 3037 to ban all electronic games to stifle the rampant illegal gambling in the country. This outrageous law briefly meant that all videogames – including tween puff-piece, My Little Pony: Best Friend’s Ball – were banned from public consumption. Madness. Thankfully, the Greek government quickly saw sense and gave videogames an extra life by lifting the ban on the 25th September 2002. Phew.

WORLD’S LARGEST VIDEO-GAME JOYPAD

Obviously not content with the relatively small size of NES controllers compared to their massive hands, US based blokes David Randolph and David Ledger made a pad standing at a lofty 8ft tall. The full measurements of the mammoth contraption are 2.43m x 1.01m x 0.22 and it weighs 68kg that’s taller than Houston Rocket’s b-baller Yao Ming and heavier than a big bag of stones. Still, it does bring a whole new meaning to the phrase co-op play as someone controls the directions and another presses A and B.