Books about videogames are a strange breed. Due to the fact that most gamers are fairly internet-savvy, there’s more than enough information online such that a majority of joystick junkies would most likely turn their noses up at the idea of paying good money for a book about their hobby when they can easily gorge themselves on the same information (for free) on the World Wide Web. This is probably why there have been so few decent books devoted to videogames – a rather unusual situation when you consider the size of the industry now and the fact that other (arguably less worthy) forms of entertainment have entire sections devoted to themselves in your average Waterstones.
Thankfully, every once in a while a publication comes along that manages to tear you away from the monitor. GamePlan’s Encyclopedia of Games Machines is such a book. Charting the history of the computer entertainment industry through the consoles and computers that have defined it over the last few decades, it is an excellent one-stop reference guide for budding gaming historians.
Originally written in German, this edition has been translated and updated in English. Although it would be naive to expect a 100% accurate translation, for the most part the prose reads perfectly and the obvious enthusiasm that the author has for the subject matter shines through, making it easier to forgive the few minor hiccups that crop up here and there. Some game titles have suffered during the process of converting the text to English (the WonderSwan shooter Judgment Silversword becomes Judgment Silverfish, for example) and this will no doubt upset die-hard videogame historians, but anyone else is unlikely to be too offended.
The book casts its net far and wide – every major console from the last 30-odd years is featured in some capacity, as well as some of the more obscure failures. The early Pong-clones start the story off, and it ends with the recently released Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. Each machine has a few paragraphs detailing its history and there are boxouts which contain other salient points (units sold, number of games produced, different hardware variants, etc). A selection of screenshots and the obligatory hardware shot complete the package, resulting in an attractive but mercifully uncluttered design.
Hardware highlights include the PC Engine (the large number of hardware variants mean that an entire page is required to cover them all), Super NES (several pages devoted to Nintendo's legendary 16-bitter, unsurprisingly) and several obscure Japanese home computers, including the MSX and Sharp X68000. As mentioned previously, several 'also-rans' are included and while the Hanimex HMG 2650, Entex Adventurevision, Interton VC 4000 and Watara Supervision didn't exactly set the world alight when they were released, reading about machines you've never heard of before is always interesting.
At the very back of the book is every geek’s dream: a few pages of tables exhaustively comparing the technical specifications of every machine listed in the book (and few others). If only this kind of resource were available years ago – it would have helped in concluding the many heated arguments that erupted in playgrounds up and down the country. It’s debatable how useful this information actually is, and only the most dedicated gaming bookworm is going to have the energy and willpower to read the entire section, but at least it’s there as a reference if you should ever have need of it.
If one were to pick a fault it would be in the lack of detail – for example, it would have been perfectly possible to devote entire chapters to some of the more high-profile machines, and those readers who have more than a passing knowledge of each console will not read anything within these pages that they don’t already know. However this is hardly a valid criticism – the book does not intend to be an in-depth study of each console, but more of a swift tour through the chequered history of the world ‘TV game’ market. As such, it’s a comprehensive catalogue of the industry and well worth plonking on your coffee table; it may not sit well next to Jamie Oliver’s Italy, but it’s a far more insightful read for anyone with even a passing interest in one of the biggest global entertainment industries the world has ever seen.
There are some PDF samples of the book on the GamePlan website. Click Here to view them
|
