Guinness World Records: The Videogame Nintendo Wii review

It’s a fair criticism that the Nintendo Wii has become a bit of a dumping ground for mini-game collections, and at first glance it’s easy to write off Guinness World Records: The Videogame as just another passenger on the bandwagon. And yet, thanks to some smart thinking, and some built-in encouragement, it’s actually a perfectly fine way to spend £20. Heck, you might even like it.

The idea is that you, and ideally one or two more players, traverse the globe looking for records to break. You’ll need Nunchuks each for most of the records, but each inevitably breaks down into a little minigame. These, however, are often quite inspired. For instance, trying to break the record for having the world’s longest fingernails involves tracing said fingernails for as long as you can before they fall off the screen. It sounds daft, but it’s surprisingly good fun. Meanwhile, we loved throwing knives at the person on the spinning board, even if we more often than not managed to whack her in the head.

As you make your way through the game – which is littered with titbits about assorted world records – you unlock more and more records to have a punt at, and the fun keeps coming. How quickly can you pop balloons? Can you get the highest score at, effectively, Asteroids? Can you balance a bus on your head? Or pull a plane? That’s just a flavour of what’s on offer here, and cleverly, the game taxes you in different ways depending on what you’re doing. You need to learn lots of techniques to be a record breaker here, and with several of you competing on screen at the same time, it’s easily one of the better jamborees of mini-games out there.

What we particularly liked was the encouragement it offered. As you near your personal best, or the console, national or even world record, the game pops up a message to tell you. And this, for this reviewer anyway, kicked the old competitive streak into life. It’s a simple device, but it really works. Just holding the console record in this writer’s house is enough to chalk up a couple of smug points.

Of course, not every game in the package keeps the standard up, but there are still far more hits than misses here. And while it may end up getting lost on the shop shelves among an assortment of shovelware rubbish, it is worth digging out. For the low asking price, it could come in invaluable when you have a few mates round…