Customer Reviews

Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-playing Games

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

 

 

Wow! What a comprehensive book. The book consists of several sections covering the history of computer RPGs. It starts with the origins, and goes into the bronze age, silver age, early golden age, golden age and onward into the platinum age and the modern era.

The Dark Age concerns itself with the pre home computer works on university mainframes, progresses into the Bronze Age with titles like Apshai and Akalbeth. The Silver Age brings us Wizardry and the early Ultima's I to III. and so on.

The book gives reviews of hundreds of games across many platforms. Often accompanying with a screenshot. This is one of the books weaker moments. The screenshots (apart from a couple of colour slides in the middle) are black and.. black. They are very very dark, often to the point of useless. Some are not too bad to look at and you can make them out.

The book does have a comprehensive index at the back, letting you quickly look up your favourite titles.

On first getting the book, I scanned my favourites and they were all there. Some of the more obscure titles like Legends on the TI99 were not present.

Gamasutra featured several articles by the author, which gives you an insight into the books contents, of which they are greatly expanded opon.

Most games get several paragraphs but I would have liked to see a little more critical thought in the reviews, but understanding that early games often had the 'Kill the big Foozle' plot, makes things hard to expand opon after the first time.

More notable games get much bigger coverage, like the classic SSI Gold Box games (Pool of Radiance, Azure Bonds, Champions of Krynn etc).

The book ends with discussion on recent titles like Dungeons and Dragons Online, Guild Wars and its ilk.

You can tell the author has quite a love for the genre, and if you grew up in the 80's or 90's, this book is just filled with info that provokes nostalgic memories.

If you bought a lot of computer magazines, you may feel a bit cheated, just remember the book is a collection of reviews. Probably the most complete and comprehensive you'll ever find.

Fans of CRPG's really should buy this book. (Hey, just like the gold box games, we even have Clyde Caldwell cover art, pretty cool stuff)

The reason for not giving 5 stars, is down to the dark screen captures. Everything else in the book is top notch.

I read this book more for nostalgic reasons than for the actual desire to read about these games. The book covered (in small detail) a very important game to me.

That was my intial thoughts on the book. After reading, I would say that the book is very well written and very informative. I especially like the beginning of the book which indicates new features and who was the first to do it. As the book goes on things blur a little too me, as the industry itself just started copying one another.

Great book, and should be read by any who have enjoyed CRPGs.

Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing games is an incredible tour-de-force of a recreational industry. Chapters cover early tabletop wargames such as "Chainmail" and its precursors, to the pencil-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons game, to the very first computer role-playing games programmed into university mainframe computers (and often deleted by administrators, making many of the first RPGs forever lost to history!). The saga continues with early classics like Wizardry, The Bard's Tale, Ultima, and Pool of Radiance; the rise of casual-friendly action RPGs like Diablo; and the success of massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) such as the wildly popular World of Warcraft. Console RPGs are also mentioned briefly, most notably trailblazer console RPGs such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. What sets Dungeons & Desktops apart is its in-depth discussion of literally dozens of early CRPGs, many more that even the most avid gamer has likely ever heard of. From two paragraphs to several pages are devoted to each CRPG title, giving a crystal clear picture of what playing the game was like (including its highlights, flaws, and bugs), its commercial success (or failure), and sometimes notes as to what its development team may be doing today. Black-and-white computer screenshots and a handful of color plates illustrate this "must-have" history and resource for CRPG aficionados everywhere. "My advice to anyone who really wants to learn the history of CRPGs is to start with the newer classics and gradually work backwards. It's still relatively easy, for instance, to find copies of Baldur's Gate or [Might & Magic VI: The] Mandate of Heaven and get them running on a modern PC... I would recommend skipping the early Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 games though - these can be excruciatingly difficult to get running even for emulation experts. If you a little further back, though, to the DOS era, things get much easier thanks to DOSBox." Highly recommended.

Dungeons & Desktops is a comprehensive and thorough history of the Computer Role Playing Game genre. It's basically a more fleshed out version of the author's earlier four-part series on the Gamasutra website, maintaining the same format of dividing the games into different ages (Dark, Silver, Gold, Platinum) and devoting some time to each game, explaining key gameplay features, release information and sometimes the author's thoughts on the game's merits.

The book's greatest strength is in cataloging both well-known and obscure games in the genre and explaining how each was innovative in some way or representative of a trend in the genre. In this way, the book gives a fairly good outline of the history of this wide-ranging genre. Even hardcore fans of the genre may be surprised by some of the very early examples Barton was able to unearth. As the book moves into the more familiar modern age, it becomes less interesting in this regard.

Although the book covers an impressive number of titles, there were spots were I felt the writing was bogged down by the repetitive nature of looking at game after game, a result of being an expanded Web feature article. Although Barton pauses at times to discuss major trends, I thought this was inconsistent, and the bulk of the book reads like Mobygames summaries of dozens of games. At times, I wanted more about the people behind the games, and voices other than the author's to break up what amounted to a series of opinions on various games.

This isn't helped by some questionable choices in organization and selection. A thorough look at console games like the Final Fantasy and Zelda series should have been reserved for another book, while Gothic, a well-known modern PC RPG series, gets nothing more than a few paragraphs as a footnote to the downfall of the Ultima series (ironically, the author states that the series has been unfairly overlooked). There are also issues that arise from attempts to lump the games into different "ages." Why one game is listed in one age and not another isn't always clear, and it leads to a confusing chronology.

I spotted a number of minor errors in the text, mostly related to chronology. A few examples: Oblivion was not released simultaneously on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Also, Vampire the Masquerade was released before Half-Life 2, and was the first Source Engine game released. While these may be minor, it left me wondering how many more I didn't catch. Also, the printing quality of the screenshots leaves much to be desired. Most look like dark blotches.

Barton's articles, from which much of this book comes from, are still a great read and catch nearly all the key games in the genre. I felt that this book did little more than add games that are of far less importance, and therefore of little interest to most readers. This book may be valuable for those who want a very comprehensive catalog of computer role playing games, but I would recommend that most readers stick with the free online articles.

This book is so thorough and detailed regarding the major computer role-playing games that have enabled users to burn billions of hours of computer time that at times the reading of it is tedious. However, that is not a criticism, as it is meant to be encyclopedic in nature and textual descriptions of games that you are unfamiliar with are hard to make exciting. Screen shots of instances in the flow of a game can in no way express the energy and excitement that it can generate in a player.
Nevertheless, as I read through this book my energy and excitement rose when I began reading about a game that I was familiar with. Fond memories of the challenges that I faced and the frustrations that I overcame as I was fixated on the keyboard trying to discern what my next move should be came flooding back.
As a reference book on the history of computer games, this book has no equal. It is not easy or simple reading and the fundamental limitations of the surface of paper dictate that many features must remain undemonstrated. Yet, despite these limitations this book makes you want to go back and find cheap or freeware versions of the "golden-oldies" and play them once again. The urge is something like what an athlete experiences but in this case it is a fantasy that you can actually relive.

I was a high level executive in the gaming industry for over a decade and thus have read my fair share of video game history books, this one was incredible. A literal blow by blow of this history of the CRPG genre. I cannot recommend this book enough .......a simple must read if you have any interest in the history of video games.

In research for my upcoming book, Paper & Pixels, I came across a series of articles on Gamasutra about the history of computer role-playing games (CRPGs). It was the most exhaustive approach on the Internet that I'd ever seen and was valuable in framing my chapter on CRPGs. When I came across Dungeons & Desktops, I noticed some similarities and sure enough, Matt Barton wrote both.

Barton's level of detail to his subject is staggering. Although other authors have touched on the development of computer role-playing games, none are as exhaustive. Grouping them by common developer and arranging them chronologically into "Ages" (i.e., Dark Age, Bronze Age, etc.), Barton takes us through a trip down memory lane. Thanks to his careful outline of those that went before, I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia about games I'd long since forgotten. In fact, thanks to the author, I installed an updated version of Wizard's Castle on my laptop and battle with it once a day - I still can't beat the darn thing. Curse you Barton!

The book is not without its flaws. There doesn't seem to be any mention of Dragonstomper, one of the earliest graphical CRPGs for the Atari 2600. There are references to different editions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as if there were a third edition - a nitpicky distinction I know, but gaming geeks like me care about the distinction between AD&D and 3E. And finally, Gelatinous Cubes originated in Dungeons & Dragons, not Ultima.

Those minor quibbles aside, this book is a massive undertaking, and Barton tackles the twisty history of gaming with aplomb. In a hectic world of exponentially paced game development, Barton's addition to gaming lore is a sorely needed resource for game scholars.

I finally received my copy of Matt Barton's Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games, and it was definitely worth the wait. Similar to the popular Gamasutra articles Matt wrote and the book was inspired by, the book is broken up into various Ages, such as The Dark Age, The Golden Age, The Modern Age, etc., though in a greatly expanded fashion. This is a logical and effective means of organization and helps guide the reader through the progressively more sophisticated - though not necessarily better - CRPGs over the years.

There is plenty of theory and before you get into the meat of the book, exactly what is and what isn't a CRPG is discussed in great detail. For the most part I agree with the definitions and delineations of the various related genres (adventure, RPG, MUDs, JRPGs, etc.) and I believe this can be used as the basis for future works by other authors. In short, the reader gets a clear picture of what exactly the author means by "CRPG" in its many forms and why some of the other games - even though they might exhibit several RPG characteristics - really fall under another classification.

It's a fun, easy read with consistent pacing. There are no "dead" spots in the book and you are constantly looking forward to the next page. Matt has always balanced scholarly writing with a mainstream sensibility, and his reputation as the "Dennis Miller of Videogames" holds true here as well, with references to individuals like philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein sprinkled throughout the book. This approach works here as well as it ever has, providing some perspective for some of Matt's more original points.

While this book does not attempt in the course of discussion to catalog every CRPG ever made - and the fact that there have been many hobbiest and low circulation semi-pro works across hundreds of different platforms makes such a feat impractical - the vast majority of games worth discussing are all here, with a few nice surprises, like coverage of some of the games on the PLATO mainframe. In all, even the most jaded RPG enthusiast should find little to quibble about in the selection of games represented in the book.

Beyond being broken down into various Ages, the book further discusses individual games and series in each of these sections, in what some other reviewers have referred to as a collection of reviews. This is not exactly true, as the author is not reviewing each of the games as much as he's describing their components and what it does and doesn't advance in terms of the then state-of-the-RPG-art (in respect to the Age it's in). Nevertheless, based on the information, the reader can definitely get an idea of whether it's a game that he or she would like to play, so in that one way, it can act like a review despite it actually being a tool for the greater narrative.

So what are some of the downsides of this book? While there are hundreds of photos, some have come out too dark in the printing to make out details, which is disappointing as seeing the games and related items is a lot of fun. I also didn't care for the title screen of Ultima II being used rather than an in-game screenshot, particularly since the Ultima II title screen is repeated in the color insert (The color insert is tough to find because it's on thin paper stock, but it's definitely there!). Nevertheless, a high percentage of the images help enhance the narrative rather than detract from it and I'm sure the image contrast is something the publisher can fix in future editions of the book.

While we'll no doubt all have our personal criticisms of this work based on our own biases (what, obscure RPG y from obscure platform z is not there?!), one fact remains--this book is very, very hard to put down. For my money, that makes any minor criticism a non-factor in regards to the greater good of the overall work. So, kudos to my videogame brother for the accomplishment and if you have even the slightest interest in RPGs or video or computer games in general, buy this book!

Dungeons & Desktops is a very rich and detailed look at the history of computer role-playing games. Matt Barton takes us on an extensive journey, beginning with the genre's roots in tabletop games, to its early years on mainframes and BBSs. We're then given a tour of some of the most beloved CRPGs of all time, such as Richard Garriott's Ultima series (a personal favorite) and The Bard's Tale. Barton even explores Japanese console RPGs, as their explosive popularity with gamers in the 90s has had an acute effect on modern CRPGs. The book concludes with the future of CRPGs in the form of persistent massively multiplayers, such as World of Warcraft.

What makes D&D (hah!) a treasure is that Barton doesn't just pay attention to the hits and genre influencers, but also the misses, such as Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (which Barton calls the worst CRPG ever) and games which never got their due, such as the great Planescape: Torment. The MMORPG section could have used some better fact checking (e.g. EverQuest's realm is called Norrath, not Narrath, and Asheron's Call 2 was shut down years ago), but otherwise the book is quite spot on.

Fans of gaming history will really appreciate this book and may rediscover some long-forgotten classics. I know I have. If you'll excuse me, I need to go play some Universe.

Reading this history of computer role playing games is a pleasant dive into the deep end of gaming history. I was so hopeful for this book that I pre-ordered a copy for myself and my son who lives in Europe. The book didn't disappoint me.

The book brought back loving memories of my sons and their mom tag teaming the games on game consoles and fighting me for time on the computer.

The author does an excellent job in presenting the history of the CRPG. He starts with the introduction of the lineage to D&D, Traveller, and other games and proceeds to discuss the wealth of games in ages relating to computer development (sound cards, graphic cards and most importantly memory). He briefly discusses the various game features and the gradual development of some of the game play features. Games are discussed and the author rates the games based on personal and other professionally written criticisms. Interwoven among the description of games, the rise and fall of many gaming companies is discussed based on good and extremely poor product decisions.

This is a good read and should be read like a dessert if the few errors in grammar and language usage don't distract you (professional proofreading must be a lost art form). It will refresh your memory regarding the games of the past and introduce you to some games you may have missed. If you are addicted enough, the author does provide some information on how to continue to play some of these games today.