Customer Reviews

Arcade Fever The Fan's Guide To The Golden Age Of Video Games

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Arcade Fever is not a perfect book, but it's still quite good. A number of reviewers have taken the author to task for the book's shortcomings. Lighten up! It's a fun book about a fun topic. Don't be so serious, you'll get an ulcer.

First off, the book is subtitled: The Fan's Guide to the Golden Age of Video Games. As a "fan's guide" it works well - it's less a doctoral thesis in the field of Arcadeology than a simple overview of games the casual 1980s arcade visitor would know and likely love. If you want obscure references and arcane knowledge, this is definitely not your book.

Second, whenever I get together with my brother and sisters I revert to the maturity of a late teenager (my wife hates this). It seems that Sellers has reverted to that same level of maturity in his commentary, and probably for the same reason: It's fun to go back in time and try and relive our favorite moments. Cut the guy a break and get in on the fun. If you can read the word "poopy" without grinning, you're not ready for this book. If the Beavis and Butthead voice in your head says "he wrote `poopy'...cool...heh heh eh heh," you're ready to dive right in.

Third, I like the year-by-year history snippets. It provides a context for what else we were doing when not playing the games. Was it necessary? No. Does "Who Shot J.R.?" have anything to do with video games? No. Does it help get you back in the mindset of The Golden Age? I think so.

Fourth, I like the mix of games in the book. There are games you loved, liked, and hated. There are the popular games and the sleepers. Are one or more of your favorites neglected? Probably (I'd have liked a page for Tailgunner or Omega Race, myself). I wish Sellers hadn't ragged on Bosconian (but I was an English major, so that's probably why I like it so much). I liked Cliff Hanger more than Dragon's Lair, but I can concede that DL deserves the full review, CH the snippet.

Finally, the sole purpose of a book like this is to kindle the feeling of nostalgia in its reader. I had forgotten some of the things in the book: some of the games, some of the trends - I had totally forgotten about putting quarters up on marquee lip to reserve the next game. I feel better for having remembered them. If you were born in the late-'60s/early-'70s, no longer live in your parents' basement, and enjoy a fun, light read, you'll probably like this book too.

I've spent a great deal of my life collecting, preserving and protecting the history of videogames through our museum exhibit VIDEOTOPIA, so I always hope for the best but fear the worst when a new videogame book hits the shelves. Arcade Fever, despite a silly title, is a FANTASTIC book.

We had the pleasure of assisting (very slightly) in the production of the book and this guy knows his games, and more to the point, he knows what made us LOVE them.

This is a fun and very visual walk through some of the greatest videogames of the classic era. If you are looking for the rush that you'd get walking into a great 80's arcade - this is the best way for you to get a good dose of a great golden-age arcade. Close your eyes and you can hear the sound effects!

Great book, great fun. Don't miss it.

Mr. Sellers has compiled what is essentially a time capsule packed with vivid recollections of adolescent indulgence laced with ribald wit. Clearly an homage, Arcade Fever is transcendant. The feel of thick carpet, black light, Sbarro's pizza and pocketfulls of quarters fills the synapses while the pages turn. Replete with nostalgia, this title is perfect for anyone who skipped class to shoot B&W rocks or navigate a corpulent carpenter upward a steely skeletal edifice. The only drawback-- the realisation that scenes from Flynn's Arcade in Tron have ceased to exist. The games are harder to enjoy now-- victims of changing tastes and a market that dried up seemingly overnight. There are no downers though, and as a love letter (which this text obviously is) it didn't end badly at all. Now excuse me while i scrounge a quarter or two and find the nearby Asteroids machine at my local movie theatre...

This book is a MUST-READ for any fan of video games who grew up tossing quarters into games like: Donkey Kong, Centipede, and Defender. Mr. Sellers does a great job of giving the early history of video games and then hitting the mainstay games from 1977-1984. The color pictures are great reminders of these games from yesterday, and there's plenty of surprises too!

One of the books strong points is that Sellers is obviously a huge fan of video games, both arcade and home. Anyone who can mention "Tunnels of Doom" (the best TI-99 game ever) is definately in "the know". The book has plenty of fun pages that include topics like: Bizarre Games, What were they thinking?, and bad sequels to games. Trust me, if you remember games like PENGO and POOYAN then you'll want to read this book.

The only weak part of the book is the fact that if you have a strong memory for the mainstay games, then you may not learn much more. There's not lots of insider information, just a brief synopsis and overview of the game topic and play. I was hoping for a bit more in depth research on facts that the normal joe may not have known.

All-in-all this is an excellent read. I hope Mr. Sellers tackles the later years of arcade gaming (Rolling Thunder, Double Dragon, Tekken) and maybe even looks at the history of homegaming...Commodore 64 anyone? So the next time you need a break from all your X-boxing or Gamecubing, pull out this book and treat your eyes and brain to a different treat!

Ok, so I may have been a bit harsh on Mr. Sellers. It's true that when I originally read his book I thought, "what the heck am I reading? This really stinks, where's Nolan Bushnell, Al Alcorn, Bill Gates and Apple Computers? Where's my dose of comedy about the employees at Atari fighting with Ray Kassar and smoking dope in the back room while whipping together a quick video game that went on to make millions."

Well, I didn't get any of that, what I did get was a brainstorm several months later. I realized that this book is not about Activision's departure from Atari or the takeover by Time Warner, nor the loud mouthed antics of Manny Gerard. I already read that in a many other books. This book is about the fun, something I forgot. I forgot the party atmosphere of sitting around the Atari playing some terrible game because it's easy to understand and everyone can quickly join in on it (...) and your girlfriend, who hates video games, even joins in on the action. A great time is guaranteed to be had by all. Well, this book is just that, a good time.

Don't sit down with this book in hand and expect to read the in depth details of how Chuck-E-Cheese was started and how much money was used for the startup of the Atari 7800, just enjoy it. It has wonderful glossy pictures of quite a few games and is entertaining. So before you get angry about not owning another instruction manual on the life and times of Atari, take a second and realize you're not supposed to be reading that here.

So I retract my original statement to "run and escape while you can." Because I understand now what this book is meant to be.
For Johnny Fever. Hope you like this one!

John Sellers' Arcade Fever finds its focus early on--and unfortunately, that focus is not classic coin-ops--it seems to be the author himself. It's one man's egotistical "memoircade," offering little to arcade fans who are not named John Sellers.

There are several things going wrong at once. Sellers, an ex-game show writer and the author of a book on pop-culture, sprinkles snippets about bad television and junk food liberally throughout--so liberally that you almost forget that the point here is video games. The reader cares about Crazy Climber, not Cookie Crisp--and since no meaningful connection between the two is ever drawn, the entire book ends up feeling forced, an excercise in "look at what I remember that you do not" false cleverness. It's not that he has chosen bad games to spotlight--he's got the best of the best, including obvious biggies like Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man through to underappreciated gems like Time Pilot and Rally-X--he simply doesn't seem to be able to discuss them on their own merits. Yet when Sellers does discuss the games, it's in the past tense, as if none of these games exist any more (clearly, they do--he used pictures of the Videotopia collection). Plus, it's simply not very interesting to hear the author describe what playing these 50 games was like (on Dig Dug: "To get maximum pointage, you had to dig a deep tunnel underneath a rock and wait for multiple bad guys to come to papa"). It would be far more enjoyable to seek them out yourself and experience them first hand--and if the book has any positive effect, perhaps this is it.

The book is repeatedly disrupted by a juvenile and distracting ribald sense of humor (introducing Asteroids: "If Pong was heavy petting and Space Invaders was getting to third base...") that feels out of place. Yes, Dragon's Lair's Princess Daphne was hot. Yes, the joystick is phallic. Get over it. There are too many pages of forced, corny jokes and pointless sidebars, such as Ms. Pac-Man's fashion critique (in lieu of the real and very interesting story of how the game went from illicit bootleg to official sequel), unfunny fake game-to-movie adaptations, and an odd, ongoing vendetta against/fetish for the obscure game Pooyan. Good interviews with Nolan Bushnell, Eugene Jarvis, preservationist Keith Feinstein, and "Pac-Man Fever" creators Buckner & Garcia are nearly swallowed up by the pointless asides.

Unfortunately, there's not much evidence of research here, merely memories. Things are described (rare game television commercials, hard-to-find sequels, bonus stages) that should have and could have been illustrated. Some facts are wrong and others are simply clouded by poor design--screenshots of sequels are mixed in with those of the original game without noting which is which. The blame for that, along with sloppy cropping of screenshots, photo pages that are clearly filler, and the lackluster, whatever-came-with-Windows font selection for game titles (why not run the original logos for all the games?) is shared with designer Corinda Cook. However, Steve Belkowitz's numerous photos of arcade machines are clear and vivid and save an otherwise ugly layout.

Arcade Fever could have been an excellent blend of history and nostalgia; instead, it reads like the work of a frustrated stand-up comedian--self-indulgent, and ultimately, a waste for arcade fans. John Sellers is not a video game historian--he's merely an observer, and therefore can offer no more insight or detail than you or I.

This is the ultimate guide to the byegone era of when your social status was determined by whether or not your initials were listed as the high score on Bubbles at your local arcade. The author has not only taken a very informative look at some of the seminal arcade games during this era, but has also provided an informative timeline of game innovations and milestones. For example, not only are the first of the very first games profiled, but the author has also pointed out why these games were important - which was the first to incorporate vector graphics, continue play, etc. Instead of being a tired listing of obscurities and the descriptions of these games, he reminds the reader of what a tremendous effect these games had on popular culture as well as a humorous timeline of the happenings of the years in which this phenomenon overtook the US. Pac Man cartoons, movies about video games, songs about video games - all were spawned by the incessant need to pump every cent you had into these electronic ... pipes, and John has provided the entire package in this great book. While the author does have some unnatural obsession with the game Pooyan, as well as use the word "titular" enough to make me think he had a pubescent Beavis and Butthead moment each time he wrote it, this is an excellent read for those of us who were (and still are) caught up in the Wokka Wokka craze. Thanks, John.

I almost didn't buy it after reading some of the reviews, and after reading the book, I didn't see the problems others had with it. It is peppered with nice tidbits, some interviews (which were very short, and didn't get boring), and a timeline that ran across the bottom of the pages which gave you a relationship between what was happening in the world at that time, and the release of the game.
I found the author's writing style enjoyable. He didn't just say 'this is pac-man, released in 1981.' He wrote about the pac-man fever hitting the nation, about the highest score possible, and who has it, all good filler information.
I would say this is a good, interesting book that most will find enjoyable to read.

Sellers arbitrarily picks 50 arcade games he considers to be classics or of note. He does a fantastic job, reviewing these machines from the eyes of an eager kid growing up in the dawn of the video game age. The writing is factual, but punctuates with sidenotes and stories of someone who lived through it all. This in itself makes this a priceless book. You can feel his enjoyment and excitement come from the pages. Sprinkled throughout are fantastic pictures of the games *and* the machines that housed them. Throw in some great anecdotal tales from the people who made the games and you have a true fanatic's book here!!

What a book! Page after page of well-written text and screenshots of all the best classic arcade games (and a few lame ones like Bubbles and Berzerk)from the 80's. Sinistar, Dig Dug, QBert, Defender, Track & Field, Karate Champ, Tempest, you name it it's in here. The author has a hilarious sense of humor that will keep you reading the text as well as looking at the pictures. You can tell the author was a huge video game fanatic back in the heyday. His first-hand knowledge of the games seems to come through in the writing. One thing: The book doesn't talk much about how to "beat" these games, i.e. no strategy or "playing tips." Personally, though, I didn't read the book to learn how to play video games. I read it because it looked really interesting -- and it was.