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Title: High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games by Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson ISBN: 0-07-222428-2 Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: 27 April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (25 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A coffee table book for the geek set...
Comment: Forget architectural digest or Martha what's her name's books if you are a computer gaming addict, this is the book for your coffee (Jolt Cola) table. "High Score" is a broad and complete history of computer games from arcades, consoles and computer games on multiple platforms. From the completeness, great pains have been taken to cover all aspects of computer game development from enabling technologies to new ideas of game play. There are enough trivia tidbits that even the most hard core gamer will find something new. The only caveat is that depth is sacrificed for breadth, making it more of a book for browsing than reading. The book is also valuable in that it reveals that fun comes in many forms and is sure to inspire game developers beyond the derivative ideas that pose as game play innovation.
Rating: 3
Summary: 320 Page CGW Special Feature
Comment: This book is more like a huge 320 page Computer Gaming World special feature (of which co-author Johnny Wilson was editor for many years) than a comprehensive history of "Electronic Games" (as well, except for a microscopic thanks in the first couple pages of the book along with 100's of others, Arnie Katz, Bill Kunkel And Joyce Worley get absolutely no credit for their pioneering game journalism or for coining the phrase this book is built upon, but I digress).
What we have is a nicely illustrated grazing of a history that was covered much better in Steven L. Kent's "The First Quarter". Still, the illustrations, images, and interviews contained within are quite compelling, and prove to make this book a good purchase, even if it does have holes the size of Montana in its main focus coverage, (the so-called Golden Age of games in the 80's), not to mention the appallingly thin coverage of anything released past 1991.
What it does, it does do well. It covers the major bases and players in 20/20 hindsight that had the biggest impact on computer games and to a much lesser extent, video games. I would have liked to see a bit more information on the Tramiel era of Atari, Europe, The Atari ST/TT/Falcon, Amiga, Spectrum, MSX as well of some pioneering game companies/personalities like Synapse, Big Five, FTL, Starpath, Datamost, Gamestar, First Star, APX, Roklan, Llamasoft/Jeff Minter, Chris Sawyer, and Spinnaker to name a few, but that is more of wishlist for what I'd like to see in volume II than a complaint.
I'd suggest that for the next volume (and lets hope there is one), the authors/editors add a few more people to their team that have intimate knowledge of different parts of gaming than the tunnel-vision that passed through the editorial halls of CGW for the past decade or so. They have the beginnings of something great, but it still needs some work to get there.
Rating: 5
Summary: An absolute treasure!
Comment: I received this book from a dear friend and was absolutely overwhelmed by how beautifully well laid out it was. The history of electronic games is well documented and shows how far we have come from the days of "Pong!". For those of you into computer games or arcade games, this is a definite "history" book about our hobby. My personal odyssey began with the Atari 2600 game system, followed by the Atari PC, Apple Macintosh and finally the IBM PC. As I read through the book I was taken back to how fun the games were back then. Memories of playing games from new game companies back then such as Broderbund, Lucasarts and now defunct Origin came rushing back. The endless hours that I spent playing "M.U.L.E." and "Rescue on Fractalus" brought a smile to my face as I saw each game talked about in the book. Reading about the pioneers such as Lord British and his star rising in the gaming scene was quite informative and entertaining. If you grew up playing games on an Amiga or Commodore 64 or an Atari 2600 you will want to get this book to show your kids what it was like before 3D graphics and virtual reality! I will treasure this book for as long as I live!
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Title: The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven L. Kent ISBN: 0761536434 Publisher: Prima Lifestyles Pub. Date: 06 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: ARCADE FEVER The Fan's Guide to The Golden Age of Video Games by John Sellers ISBN: 0762409371 Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Supercade: A Visual History of the Videograme Age 1971-1984 by Van Burnham ISBN: 0262524201 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Medium of the Video Game by Mark J. P. Wolf ISBN: 029279150X Publisher: University of Texas Press Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Trigger Happy : Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution by Steven Poole ISBN: 1559705396 Publisher: General Pub. Date: 29 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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