What books do you guys own and recommend?

All I have is "High Score". Its got lots of nice pictures and a real brief description of games and systems from the beginning all the way up to the PS2 gen. It gets into a bit of computer gaming history also. All in all, its a decent book, but not as in-depth as I'd like.

If you want in-depth, try Steve Kent's The Ultimate History of Video Games. That to me blew Game Over out of the water.

Another good one, told from a Japanese perspective, is Chris Kohler's Power Up. Minus a butt load of points for being factually inaccurate in a number of instances.

From a semi-anthropological assessment of game culture and history, try Gamers , edited by Shanna Compton. It's a collection of essays and articles by a number of different aspects of gaming culture, and goes into a decent amount of detail regarding early gaming pioneers. I skimmed over a lot of it, but what's in there that's good is very good.

The Ultimate History of Video Games all the way. And I remember reading Game Over back in middle school, but I never did finish it.

I have quite a few books. The Ultimate History of Vodeo Games is outstanding, but lacks pictures. Right now I've been reading The Encyclopedia of Game.Machines. Absoulutely outstanding, with tons of info and pictures. My only gripe is it fails to mention some obscure and even not-so-obscure systems (RCA Studio II). I've been thinking about writing one myself, but it would require a lot of work and research. I also won't do one about the history of gaming or consoles in general, it would have to be unique.

Hey MaximumRD, I notice that you made mention of a Matt Barton on your latest YouTube video. I saw that he recently had a book published called Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time. I was wondering if you have possibly read or know anything about this book?

Oddly enough, after watching your video I looked up this Baron fellow and quite ironically I found that he teaches college right here in the town I live in, St.Cloud, MN!! That was quite cool to find out and I'm definitely gonna have to check out his YouTube site and this book possibly as well.

Thanks again for all you've done MaximumRD, congrats on over 100 subscribers, hope your voice gets better and keep up the good work.

TwinChargers wrote:Hey MaximumRD, I notice that you made mention of a Matt Barton on your latest YouTube video. I saw that he recently had a book published called Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time. I was wondering if you have possibly read or know anything about this book?

Oddly enough, after watching your video I looked up this Baron fellow and quite ironically I found that he teaches college right here in the town I live in, St.Cloud, MN!! That was quite cool to find out and I'm definitely gonna have to check out his YouTube site and this book possibly as well.

Thanks again for all you've done MaximumRD, congrats on over 100 subscribers, hope your voice gets better and keep up the good work.

Thanks TC! I have not had the pleasure first hand of reading Matt's works but have heard great feedback on them. Yes definitely check out his videos! I don't know what is up with my voice/throat, I did a couple takes for the video when I noticed the problem, I am back tonight at the same site but am trying to rest my voice in the meantime........

MaximumRD wrote:I don't know what is up with my voice/throat, I did a couple takes for the video when I noticed the problem, I am back tonight at the same site but am trying to rest my voice in the meantime........

I recommend non-filtered Camels and a fifth of Scotch. That always left my voice sounding nice.

Awesome. I'm adding these books to my Amazon wish list now.

Outside of books, if you wanna read a good magazine and don't mind paying $11.99 an issue (it's printed in the UK), Retro Gamer is awesome. You can check out my thread I started a while back here: viewtopic.php?f=39&t=110

http://www.retrogamer.net

I have a lot of them i know someone in the UK he come to the USA every year and give me them real nice magazine i like looking at the old one to see the system that come out over there

I know it is outside the realm of speculation but you might be interested in a couple of computer books that are of extreme interest to me:

Fire in the Valley (general coverage of the computer industry in the early days)

and

Gates (specific to Bill Gates and the early days of Microsoft- I didn' know that Bill does not have a driver's license).

triverse wrote:I know it is outside the realm of speculation but you might be interested in a couple of computer books that are of extreme interest to me:

Fire in the Valley (general coverage of the computer industry in the early days)

and

Gates (specific to Bill Gates and the early days of Microsoft- I didn' know that Bill does not have a driver's license).

I have several old computer books from back in the day. Compute made quite a few for the Atari 8-bit, and they were absolutely fantasic in teaching the basics. I will take not of the two you mentioned. They sound like a great read.

Gates is to me the equivelant of Game Over, taken with Fire in the Valley (read Gates after FitV because FitV just covers Microsoft as another player in the bigger story but it is still interesting). What I loved about Gates was that apparently BG tried to push to have certain things taken out or changed so that he wouldn't seem so 'hard headded' or 'out there' but the writers stuck to their guns on it and got almost everything they wanted in. They cited that some things were rewritten before going to press but it was their choice to make it more clear, not from pressure.
There are some others that are good, I have to go find them again.

Alright, I got a copy of The Ultimate History of Video games. About 3/4 of the way through and it is indeed a great read. The only thing that is somewhat unfortunate is that I wish things weren't moving so fast in the second half of the book. Theres still a few generations of games to speak of and there aren't a ton of pages left to discuss them. Liked the fact they talked tons about the beginning of Atari and all that, they've discussed Nintendo and Sega fairly well too. Just unfortunate that the later generations won't get the same treatment as the earlier ones.

TwinChargers wrote:Alright, I got a copy of The Ultimate History of Video games. About 3/4 of the way through and it is indeed a great read. The only thing that is somewhat unfortunate is that I wish things weren't moving so fast in the second half of the book. Theres still a few generations of games to speak of and there aren't a ton of pages left to discuss them. Liked the fact they talked tons about the beginning of Atari and all that, they've discussed Nintendo and Sega fairly well too. Just unfortunate that the later generations won't get the same treatment as the earlier ones.

There's always stuff missing from books. I wanted them to mention the Colorvision, but it wasn't there. If I remember right, they also didn't include the Halcyon.

Someone should see if Steve Kent would be up for writing " The Ultimate History of Failed Video Game Consoles".

TwinChargers wrote:Someone should see if Steve Kent would be up for writing " The Ultimate History of Failed Video Game Consoles".

Wow, that sounds like a great idea, I know I would buy it. Some of the most fun things in the world are things that did not sell well.