Videogame books

[Brand X]

A few days ago I ordered The Ulimate History of Videogames by Steve Kent, and High Score! The Illustrated History on Videogames from Amazon. I got them in the mail today, and I am overly impressed!

The only other book I have read on videogames was Game Over, and while I enjoyed reading the book, I felt that it was extremely limited in the fact that it was only about Nintendo.

I just got done reading about 100 pages of Steve Kents book, and I love it. Has anyone else read either of these books? I'd be interested in seeing how other people feel about these books.

[K3V]

I enjoyed Lucky Wander Boy if your looking for some videogame-related fiction.

[Ajinryu]

Resident Evil novels....Woot!

[Chux]

I read the doom books when they first came out, and the Ninja Gaiden, and Blaster Master books too. Now I'm reading First Strike (The third Halo book) and that's great too.

[Giga Power]

I have High Score and while I did enjoy it, I wish it was more aimed at console gaming. There was way too much about early PC gaming.

Let me know how the other is. If it's good I'll pick it up.

[NeoZeedeater]

Kent's book is easily the best one out there for a general overview of arcade/console gaming history.

I have High Score and while I did enjoy it, I wish it was more aimed at console gaming. There was way too much about early PC gaming.

I like how this book at least attempted to mix computer, console, and arcade gaming as I think they should all be talked about together in a history book but unfortunately the authors really didn't know their console gaming. The console stuff feels really tacked on, underdeveloped and has some nasty errors. I also didn't like how the book is full of pictures of bad box art yet has hardly any game screenshots. Still, I think it was worth getting despite its flaws.

Game Over is great aside from devoting way too much space to Tetris. A lot of people who read this book way after it came out don't like it but I think that mostly stems from that fact that a lot of the stuff in this book is common gamer knowledge today. At the time it was published, names like Miyamoto and Yokoi were virtually unknown so the impact was much greater if you read it then.

Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Home Videogames was the most in-depth history book a decade ago and it has a lot of detail especially about the earliest years. Kent's book has surpassed it but it's still worth reading despite the writing style being kind of dry.

Masters of Doom is a must read for id fans.

Supercade is a cool book devoted to early arcade games.

Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari was a book I took out of the library a decade ago. Back then I really enjoyed reading it.

Trigger Happy is an interesting book on the more philosophical and psychological side of gaming.

[Brisco Bold]

Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Home Videogames was the most in-depth history book a decade ago and it has a lot of detail especially about the earliest years. Kent's book has surpassed it but it's still worth reading despite the writing style being kind of dry.

Always wanted to read this, but could never find it in stores.

[NeoZeedeater]

I don't think Phoenix was ever sold in stores. The author self-published it. The only reason I knew about it was because EGM gave the address you could order it from.

[taloony]

Game Over is great aside from devoting way too much space to Tetris. A lot of people who read this book way after it came out don't like it but I think that mostly stems from that fact that a lot of the stuff in this book is common gamer knowledge today. At the time it was published, names like Miyamoto and Yokoi were virtually unknown so the impact was much greater if you read it then.

I just read it a couple years ago, and thought it was pretty good. My knowledge of Nintendo has never been expansive though, so several things in it were new to me.

Other than that, all I've read is the old Blaster Master novel, which I still have somewhere. I enjoyed it then.

[The_Meach]

I've always enjoyed Steven Kent's articles, be they in NextGen or in the Times (Seattle).

I 'spose it's time to go pick up his book.