Best Illustrated History of 151 Classic Video Games | Retro Gaming Book for Collectors & Enthusiasts | Perfect Gift for Gamers & Nostalgia Lovers

Introduction:This book is pretty good. I grew up in the 80s since I was born in 1981. Video games have always played a role in my life but mainly up through my early 20s. I still own and play the latest games (Xbox One) but real life gives me little time. Despite this, I love to keep up with some video game news, subscribe to magazines, etc. These activities have waned considerably in the last couple of years but nonetheless I love video game history and a book like this is right up my alley. I will take my time reading it in small 5-20 minute sessions (I won't go into any more detail than that) and there's a ton of information to read. A lot I will likely skip so let me get to my review to explain why and what I like.What I Love:1) I love the pages dedicated to just about every console. They give backstories on development, provide images and even factoids on the pages. It's all great stuff but could be done better so I'll get into that down below where I discuss shortcomings.2) I love all of the great, high quality art, graphics and screenshots. The page designs and layouts are awesome. I wouldn't have bought it if it was more or less a bunch of text; I'm a sucker for pictures!3) I love the in-depth reviews and information on the popular and meaningful games at the time. I know the backstory on a lot of this but there's certainly a lot of developmental details I did not.4) I love the history of everything in the book. It's much more of a history and fact-heavy type of a book than a memory or just review of what certain game consoles or games are like. I prefer this approach so the book is great in that regard!What I Dislike:1) I dislike the way they laid out the format for how they talk about different topics. Let me explain-- The consoles and console pages are more or less in chronological order which is cool but the games throughout the book are more or less as well and they're mixed-in all over the place with the consoles. You can go from the next console's page(s) of, let's say, the NES or aka Famicom. The next few pages could very well be game pages for games on the Atari or SMS. In other words, all game pages are strewn about. I'd much rather they took one of two approaches here: I'd much prefer for the games for NES to be discussed immediately following the NES page, not anywhere else in the book and the games for Sega Genesis be after the Genesis page and not anywhere else. Or, alternatively, they could have discussed all consoles in their own pages in the first section of the book then all games in the second section or half of the book. Instead they took the worst of three approaches, in my opinion.2) I dislike that they don't go into more detail on console add-ons and accessories. Especially the add-ons. For example, on the Atari Jaguar instead of having their own page and complete section on the Jaguar CD add-on they just have a sentence or two on it, a very small image with a little caption. That's it. They do this for all other add-ons on all other consoles, too. Pretty disappointing, really.3) I dislike that they don't give more detailed information and facts on all the consoles and games. I would like to see a little chart for all systems giving information on how many games were made, how many consoles were sold, when the date of the last game made was, complete release date information for consoles including each country, etc. You won't find all of this, sadly.4) I've come across a few grammatical errors in word choice and sentence structure. Not a lot but there are certainly a few.5) There appears to be some false information. I've only read maybe 2% of the book (various pages, sections, etc. not just the first 2% of all pages). One example: For all games if there is a way to play it today they will tell you where and how. For their page on Maniac Mansion they state you can play it today on Xbox 360 Live Arcade. I immediately was sure this was wrong as I was a pretty big gamer on Xbox 360 and would have known about this as I keep up with retro news like that. I went ahead and searched on Google to see if it was true but my suspicions were confirmed-- It is not available on Xbox Live Arcade and never was.For other games that may be on Xbox Live Arcade and mentioned by the book I found at least one that actually was available as they state on Xbox Live arcade but it was taken off the service way back in 2010. 2010, yes, and this book was published in 2014. It had been no longer available for years but this book still states you can get it from Xbox Live and play it on Xbox 360!Misinformation like this in books is a critical error. These are just two examples and I've only looked at that "Play Today" information for maybe 1% of all game pages in this book so I'm sure there's plenty of other mistakes.Conclusion:To conclude this review I'll state again that this book has a lot that is good and thus a lot going for it. Sadly there's still a lot of information lacking that I would have liked to have seen but the information that is there is very good and presented very well! As I said the format of how they discuss games and consoles in terms of the order of presentation and how they did this I dislike quite a bit. The worst of all, however, is the factual information that's either outright false and wrong or was true at one time but many years before publication something changed and their information is wrong.I still recommend this book to old-school video game fans, mainly those who grew up in the 80s or 90s but also those who just have a deep interest in the history of video games.Any book about computer gaming, such as this well-written and informative one, that calls the ZX Spectrum by its proper name, spells in proper English and mentions Elite for the BBC, is a great book in my eyes.I'm about a fifth of the way through so far, but the excellent writing and well-researched information are consistently of a high standard, whether reviewing the games themselves or the hardware running them, and I consider the money expended on this book well spent.Most history of gaming books I find tend to be more pictures and often little more than a brief commonly known paragraph about the game. This however is the perfect mix of beautiful images and interesting text. I'm going to pretend it's on my coffee table when actually it's the perfect accompaniment for a read in the bathroom!Delivery; Item arrived fast in the typical cardboard wrap\envelope.Item; This is a great book, theres plenty of info and screenshots for each game, and a wide range of games & systems covered, the paper its printed on feels like it is good quality, i would recommend this to any gamer who likes book related content.Would recommend? YesI bought this book for my Grandson as a Christmas gift.... Once he had opened it, well that was it!I didn’t hear a peep from him! His nose well and truly in the book!Bought this for a family member who is computer mad, it lists everything you need to know about all arcade and consoles from the early 70's up to the present, very detailed and well written, hats off to the author who really did his homework, hours of fun reading.