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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not much more than Eye Candy..,
This review is from: 1000 Game Heroes (Midi) (Paperback)
When I saw this book, I though "Ooh! A book of video game heroes!", so naturally I had to give it a look. When I came across it at [a book store] I thought "Man, this looks really nice!", but the truth is, that's about all it is. It LOOKS nice, but beyond that, you're not really getting much of anything besides pictures. If you want some kind of decent list of the greatest video game heroes of all time, you're not going to get it. Before I tell you how disappointing I found this book to be, I'll tell you what I liked. First off, it's filled with beautiful CG pictures from all kinds of video games, probably including a few you've never heard of. Second, the book is multilingual, which I find to be INCREDIBLY cool. I believe it is written in 3 different languages. That's all, though. Now let me tell you what I DIDN'T like. 1. The book is clearly called "1000 Game Heroes", right? You'd THINK it'd be about game heroes, but instead it's this weird mix of game series titles AND hero names. Where on one page you'll see "Final Fantasy", on the next you'll just see a character name like "Sonic" or "Mario" or "Zelda". Those are character names, whereas "Final Fantasy" is not. Final Fantasy is a large series of games. 2. Speaking of Final Fantasy, it IS mentioned in the book, but here's the kicker. The only Final Fantasy game you'll see mentioned is FFX, and it's not even labeled as such. The page just says "Final Fantasy" and then underneath you get a paragraph plot synopsis of FFX. So what about Final Fantasy games 1 through 9? Do they not deserve any mention because they're not "recent"? 3. Like I said above, if a game isn't recent, it isn't mentioned. For instance, Xenosaga is mentioned... but Xenogears is not. 4. For the Sonic and Zelda series games as well as other hugely popular series, they've chosen not to include older game art. Instead they just want to show us the recent stuff. Sonic's designs have changed considerably since the Genesis days, and if they're going to feature Sonic, they shouldn't just show pictures and screen shots from Sonic Adventure. They should show Sonic's original design and Sonic's original game's overall look as well. 5. The book has a stupid and confusing way of categorizing their "heroes" (or in actuality, random popular characters and random game titles) into different sections. There's even a section for "Sexy" game heroes, and "Tomb Raider" is one of them. First off, "Tomb Raider" is the game's title, not the game hero. If they want to show sexy heroes, they should really be more specific. Oh, and all of the sexy heroes were females. No guys. Now I know the target audience for most video games is male, but many girls like to play video games too, and I'm just one of them. If you're going to do a section of scantily clad females, then put some nice looking men in there too, will ya?! This book needs to be titled "Random Video Games, Video Game Heroes, and Pretty CG Pictures", because that's all it is. While you do get plot synopses, you'll end up with crap like Final Fantasy X's plot representing the entire Final Fantasy series. Even though ANY Final Fantasy fan knows that the plots and characters for every Final Fantasy game are vastly different (sans Chocobos, Mogs, etc..) Anyway, to sum it up, this book is only good for the pictures, really. You'll get some great shots from certain games, but if you want pictures that much, you're better off buying the art book for whatever game it is you really like, or finding the pictures on the internet. I even found a picture in the Mario section that looked like it had horrible JPEG compression. Who wants to buy a book with compressed JPEG images in it? I know I don't. If you're looking for a good book on video games and game heroes, buy "High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games" instead. It's a much better book with much better content, and it'll cost you half as much as "1000 Game Heroes" will.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's all in the game.,
This review is from: 1000 Game Heroes (Midi) (Paperback)
A super-size dazzling collection of 1000 digital game heroes, all in color and beautifully printed. Not only the heroes and scenes from the games but many have development drawings too. Each hero has a page introduction (in three languages) and some technical info about the platform, developer, issue date and more, then a page devoted to the character, usually as a cut-out on a white background (these are not screen shots but taken from the original digital development) followed by scenes from the game. Naturally with just over six-hundred pages it is very comprehensive and can get a bit overwhelming. Divided into ten sections, 1 Fearless Heroes, 2 Fighting Heroes, 3 Funny Heroes, 4 Heroes of the Future, 5 Kings of Action, 6 Legends of Video Games, 7 Licensed Heroes, 8 Magical Heroes, 9 Sexy Heroes and lastly, Strange Heroes, you might find the placing of some characters in these divisions a bit arbitrary. The back of the book has a game and a platform index so you can flip to your favorites. Though the book is quite stunning visually I found it hard work reading it, mainly because the typography is not very user friendly, for instance, the page numbers are turned sideways and positioned in the top right-hand corners of each left-hand page, the games technical information is also turned sideways, in small capitals, and printed in black and white on darkish panels. Perhaps most annoying are the introductions, this text, fortunately only a few lines deep, stretches across the page in lines 160mm wide with the English printed in various colors, lucky French and German readers get black type. So apart from the silly typography I think game fans you will love this huge book, a printed record to remind you of all the (enjoyable) hours and sore thumbs endured in chasing the heroes around the screen and watching the bad guys win or lose.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fine for what it is.,
By
This review is from: 1000 Game Heroes (Midi) (Paperback)
Most of these reviewers are being anal genre dorks. This isn't intended to be a deep-seated essay on or analysis of video games. It's just a collection of pretty pictures and I don't think it makes any claims to be anything else. It's by Taschen for god's sake - who buys their books for the text? It's kind of thrown together, there is some lack of continuity in the categories, and there are one or two bad reproductions, but you're basically getting a decent sourcebook. Yeah, you could have the same or better by compiling yourself from various gaming mags, etc., but this is at least more convenient. The price IS too high though, and I've never seen it on sale. But if you just want to get a more-or-less comprehensive notion of the visual elements of gaming culture as it stands at present, flipping through this book for an hour should provide you with that.
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