I've been playing video games for 20 years now. I began with the Atari, saw the market crash, grew up with Nintendo, and got caught up in the 90's proliferation of newer and hotter systems. I know a great deal about the industry, yet this book puts my knowledge to shame.
Exhaustively researched and crammed ridiculously full of information, anecdotes, and hundreds of direct quotes from every walk of video game life, this book is worth more than one read-through. My copy is well-worn because I find it so easy to take with me on plane trips and just start reading through at random points. It's written in a very friendly, conversational tone and engages you with its prose. The book is extremely interesting because the author is clearly interested in the subject himself. He manages to get the kind of details and answer the type of questions you'd want to know, yet stays very thorough and accurate throughout.
Loads of different subjects are covered, sometimes at great length: The bar where Pong was first tested. Nintendo's lawsuit against Galoob's Game Genie. Tengen illegally producing Nintendo games and the big N's forceful prosecution. The battles over Donkey Kong and Tetris. The founding of Electronic Arts. Sega's mid 90's dominance and slip of the cd based systems. The furor over Mortal Kombat. School shootings. I can't list enough, and I can't go on enough about it. This book is extremely comprehensive and covers the entire video game industry and all its major players chronologically from the 70s until the turn of the century. It's well-written, accurate (given all those direct insider quotes) and completely objective. One of the best things about it is the fact that it gives details of so many things from my video game youth, such as the first Nintendo commercials, as well as the good old days of parents rampaging through stores for a copy of the "low supply" games. Aside from interesting industry information, this book helped me reminisce.
I've read "Game Over" (the only book comparable to this one on the subject, though it centers on Nintendo), "Phoenix, the Fall and Rise of Videogames, "Masters of Doom", and several other video game books. Honestly, this one still entertains me after four years. Though it ends at about the dawn of the PS2 and Xbox, it covers so much history and gives so many informative, interesting, and humorous stories that it really does deserve the title "Ultimate". Forgive me for not being more objective, but I must shrug and stick to my story. At 500 pages, and with such a wealth of information about so many familiar faces, companies, and games, I just find this to be the best book on the subject without question. Absolutely worth checking out for any video game player. The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World
Combine Leonard Herman's accurate but dry Phoenix with the intimacy of David Sheff's Game Over and you've got The Ultimate History of Video Games, the best account of video game history to date. Numerous anecdotes from the people who made the games that made history--from Atari's Al Alcorn and Nolan Bushnell through to Square's Hironobu Sakaguchi and Sony's Kaz Hirai--give the book an personal, friendly tone. Gamers should note that this is a reprinted but noticably improved version of Kent's self-published The First Quarter, with a full index, more photographic examples, a more attractive layout, and the removal of all the confusing typos and minor errors (sadly, the original book's clever title was removed as well, but the amended facts are worth it). Ultimate History's conversational tone, broad scope, and authoritative direct quotes make it very compelling as a narrative but just as useful as a reference. Along with David Sheff's Game Over, it's an entertaining must-read for students of gaming history.
This is really two books in one. The first half is a detailed history of the rise and fall of Atari. It is chock full of interesting details, and rightly focuses on the fascinating personalities who drove the company that did more than any other to take video games mainstream. The author's years of covering the industry and these people paid dividends in this section.By contrast, the second half of the book, which mainly covers the rise of Sega, Nintendo and Sony, feels rushed and is far less comprehensive. Many part felt like rewrites of news articles, rehashing history rather than bestowing new insights. I don't want to sound too harsh, because this is a good overview, but this section falls short compared with the high standards set by the Atari history.I also have a couple format quibbles. Many direct quotes are offset from the main text in bold. This is distracting. Some quotes simply repeat what had just been stated in regular text. I understand the need to back up assertions with quotes, but some of the comments are bland and don't really add anything. Other sections begin with quotes that are only tangentially related to the ensuing text, or were from speakers who don't make further appearances or whose comments are not elaborated on. Another complaint is the use of excerpted passages from contemporary news articles that don't give the source up front but force the reader to look up footnotes in the back. If a passage is important enough to offset from the main text, the reader should be told right away who wrote it and in what publication.Also, I thought the title was slightly misleading, since this is more a history of the video game *industry* rather than of video games themselves. A subtle distinction perhaps, but while there is background on certain titles, especially from the Atari years, I had expected more on actual games.Overall, the book is informative and interesting though I believe it falls short of its lofty claim of being an "ultimate" history. - History - Video Game Book - History Of Video Games - Computing History'
Detail Products
Detail Reviews
Click here for more information
