The Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer's Edition contains something for players of all kinds. Notching the latest high-water mark in the seemingly never-ending battle for Donkey Kong supremacy, New York City's Hank Chien earned the "Highest Score on Donkey Kong" with 1,090,000 points. Mobile mavens will love the spread on Angry Birds, the "Best-Selling Mobile Series" (more than 250 million downloads) and the app with the "Most Days Spent as the Best-Selling App in iTunes Store" (275 consecutive days).

Gamers with a little extra cash can spend $1,242 of their hard-earned money on the "Most Valuable Kinect Sensor", a special peripheral encrusted with 6,000 Swarovski crystals. Brassy brawlers will be knocked out by an entire section devoted to Fighting Games including Mortal Kombat, Marvel Vs. Capcom and Dead or Alive, while the growing genre of "Lifestyle & Fitness" games boasts achievements like "Most People Exercising to a Videogame" (783 people).

Once again, this year features many women making their mark in the interactive realm. Iowa's Elizabeth Bolinger preferred to dance her way into the record books, where she earned the title for "Most Prolific Dancing Game High Scorer" with top scores in 85 songs spanning across Dance Central, Just Dance and Just Dance 2 and she'll be attempting a new high score on popular gaming network G4 in mid-January. Jennifer Hale grabbed the record for "Most Prolific Voice Actor" for lending her voice to 129 video games over the course of almost two decades.

Irrational Games’ Ken Levine chose Skyrim.

"It's primarily because they create these amazing worlds. I tweeted one night I was spending my entire night catching butterflies. Who would have thought? If I had pitched to somebody, we're going to make this experience, and you can spend hours if you want just walking around catching butterflies, people would tell me I was crazy. But the fact it allows both the scale of fighting dragons to catching butterflies and watching the sunset, that's all really amazing stuff. It's an incredible achievement in world creation and an inspiring product with an insanely awesome amount of content that feels terrific. I applaud those guys."

Richard Garriott picked Minecraft stating: "This sandbox game is one I love to play, wish I made, and will inspire my future work!"

Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux also picked Minecraft.

"This year Markus [Persson] and Mojang have taken us all on a development journey. At the start of the year the game was rough and ready but with a purity which showed amazing potential. Now here we are at the end of the year and Minecraft is stuffed full of features, achievements, discoverable mines and villages and even an endgame. I truly feel that we, the fans, have participated in its development."

Eat Sleep Play’s David Jaffe picked Batman: Arkham City, partially because it is "sandbox enough that it makes me feel immersed in the space but it leads me enough and it's constricted enough that I still feel like I'm being taken by the hand and being shown something cool frequently enough that I don't end up getting lost."

"And on top of that sits this great... It's too easy in this industry to crib inspiration from films - and I did it too, with Twisted Metal Black - but to stand on the shoulders of movie directors and ape their style and then say 'this is mine'. And then have the press show up and give you credit for it like you did something special. With Batman, I thought for the first time in recent years it actually had a direction or a voice that really was equivalent to the Christopher Nolan films or some of the best Batman comic writers. It really did add to the canon and had an understanding and its own spin on the Batman mythos, which I thought was a great wrapper around the brilliant gameplay structure.

"It was firing on all cylinders, on all levels."

The other games singled out as game of the year by various developers were Battlefield 3, Dark Souls, Portal 2, Resident Evil 4 HD, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and The Witcher 2.

Today, DAC has confirmation that a settlement has, in fact, taken place. It actually took place the day of the trial - and had I been able to get online and sort through the documents I would have reported as much. We do not yet have the details of the settlement - they will be announced this month (January 2012) - but we can report that on the day of trial, the atmosphere in the court room was tense until the judge recessed. This recess was extended, and then they recessed for lunch. After the lunch recess, the court room was locked to everyone except attorneys and clients. When our source asked why this was the case, our source was told it was because they were working out a settlement. The following day, another source called the court reporter to ask what the next hearing schedule for the case was - this source was told there was no schedule as a settlement had been reached.

So there you have it. Bethesda v. Interplay settled and done after these long few years. Stay tuned to DAC in the near future for the settlement details. Will Interplay still be able to develop Fallout: Online? Did they give up the rights to do so for a truck load of money? Hopefully we'll have the answers soon.

Steam's sale ends at 10 Am Pacific Standard time (US)/ 6 PM GMT. During this time you may still accomplish objectives related to their Gift Pile Contest.

Steam's Final Holiday Sale Daily Deals
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution $16.99
• Bastion $5.09
• Total War Series 75% Off
• Terraria $2.49
• Orcs Must Die! $3.74
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim $40.19
• Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3 $44.99
• L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition $12.49
• Saints Row: The Third $33.49
• Dungeon Defenders $3.74
• Magicka $2.49 (collection is $6.24 and The Stars Are Left is $1.49)
• Dead Island $19.99
• Portal Series 75% Off
• Batman: Arkham City $24.99
• Assassin's Creed Series 25-75% Off ($59.99 for the complete pack)
• Serious Sam Series 50-90% Off

We aren't entirely certain when the following deals will come to an end. This article will be updated once that information is available.

Amazon.com is still offering up to 80% savings on 2K games as well as a variety of other deals.

Gamersgate currently has over 500 games on sale. They also have a Buy 4 for 3 deal. If you purchase 4 games in the same order then you'll get the cheapest one for free.

GameStop/Impulse Driven's holiday sale continues through some point today.

Good Old Games's impressive holiday sale will continue until about midnight on the US East coast/ 5 AM GMT on January 3.

Will any of you pick up something at the last minute? I'm tempted to buy Dead Island for some friends.