Vintage Games Book Review

It is one of those few moments in life, when you receive something that you know is going to be awesome, simply by seeing it, you know it is going to be great. This has happened to me a few times in life, when I walked into a local store that sold video games and saw Super Mario Bros 3 sitting on the shelf, when I saw that 1984 Ford Mustang and was the winning bidder on it ($200 in 1994 was a steal) at an estate sale, and when I saw the box arrive several weeks ago with my copy of Vintage Games, by Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton and published by Focal Press, in it. It was just one of those moments in life for me.

I have been a gamer since I can remember, playing with my father after school and sitting in his lap reading Electronic Games reading reviews of the great games that were being released (I looked at the pictures more myself, but I was 6 or so). I remember getting a Color Computer (stop laughing) and then a Commodore 64, then a NES and on up I went with consoles after the IBM PC became the dominant platform (and was costing through the roof, way out of my budget of doing summer work and buying stuff on allowance). I still had access to great games (at school or at friends house’s) and remember playing many of them fondly. I remember skipping class to play in the computer lab the last two periods of the day before going home (I was going to beat one more scene in King’s Quest VI that a fellow student brought to school and installed).

I have spent many a late night reading Vintage Games (much to the chagrin of my fiancee who had to endure the light being on and then dealing with me being tired and groggy the next morning). VG is just so good, it is very much like being there, the greats are covered and while some are not like I remember them, I am still just in awe that Mr. Loguidice and Mr. Barton were able to bring this much information together in such a wonderful manner. See, those opening paragraphs are basically a summary of the great memories I had come flooding back to me while reading VG (even sad ones of my father and his addiction with his first and last video game, Shanghai by Activision for 3DO which he played during his retirement up to the day he passed away). That is not to say that Vintage Games is a sad book, it is wonderful and extremely well written with intelligent language and prose (they had me getting the dictionary a few times but not often).
There are 25 chapters in the print book with 9 free chapters online at Armchair Arcade with hundreds of additional photos of the games and other memorabilia that most will have forgotten even existed (thumb to the chapters on Ultima and Zork for an idea of what I am talking about here). Games that are covered are represented very well, the games that aren’t center stage are given their just dues also. There are just so many things covered in Vintage games that it is amazing that the authors were able to gather it all. The authors have gone the extra mile and made not only additional chapters available for free online but also many pictures that aren’t in the book. Speaking of pictures, I don’t know exactly how they got the quality shots that are in the book but kudos for getting them. The games shown have never looked better.
I simply cannot pick a chapter that is my favorite of them all, though even when I wasn’t interested in the category of games being covered, I still couldn’t put the book down or skip ahead because I wanted to read what was said on the next page. It is that good.
While Vintage Games is essentially a history book focusing on videogames, it is definitely not boring like a history book normally is. The information here is presented in such a way that you will want to keep reading, much like some of the more popular novels are, you just can’t put it down. If you are even slightly interested in knowing about the games that were released years ago, or shaped the gaming industry as we know it or just into games in general, you owe it to yourself to check out Vintage Games by Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton. There is even a Kindle version available now for readers that would rather take advantage of that option.

Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton are working with the award winning Armchair Arcade website, why not swing by and check out their other endeavors?

Vintage Games is available in the following formats:

Kindle

Paperback

Armchair Arcade website