Gamers Beat World Record

On November 20th at 5pm, three Canadians set upon a quest–armed with Diet Pepsi and Amp energy drinks–to destroy the Guinness World Record for consecutive hours spent playing a first person shooter.

On November 22nd at 10am, victory was theirs with more than 40 hours logged on their toasty warm Xbox 360.

Greater Than (the Edson, Alberta team of friends Travis Hicks, Jory Keen, and Trent Halliwell) sought to double the previous record of 24 hours and 4 minutes set by the UK-based Frag Dolls. And while GT may have come up 10 hours short of their goal, they certainly raised the bar for the record. Future usurpers to the throne may think twice; it seems 50 consecutive hours of Halo 3 is not as easy to achieve as it sounds.

A couple of live updates from Keen to The Review Crew gave some insight into true challenge on so much gaming at one time. (I’ve kept punctuation and grammar intact… I wouldn’t want to misrepresent the stress that clearly took a toll.)

After the first day: We’re in our 25th hour right now, and it’s brutal haha. We anticipated it would be rough, but not like this. The record has been broken, and we’re halfway to our goal of 50 hours. Bring on the caffeine!

And then it just got rougher: We’re calling it quits at 40 hours – in about 10 min. Someone is going to die if we don’t.

In the process of becoming Guinness (record, not beer) champions, GT also raised more than $1,000 for the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation in Edmonton.

After a marathon of sleep, Keen reflected on his good fortune to beat the world record with a handful of his best friends.

“I consider myself very lucky,” said Keen. “It was definitely the experience of a lifetime, and you can count on us being back to do it again.”