This is an amazing book. In terms of content, it's ridiculously comprehensive and gives the basic background information of every game (developer, platform, etc.) as well as a very in-depth review. The reviews themselves are fantastic as they cover the game from a variety of perspectives: how the game relates to its series (if applicable) as a whole, how the game relates to others in the genre, how the game holds up today, etc. There are occasional screenshots as well, with captions. The reviews never give numerical ratings, which is a plus for me because they can often be misleading. I really appreciate the coverage of entire series, and games that are technically not graphic adventures are often included for the sake of completeness.
The whole thing is organized by publisher, starting with the bigger ones and giving a brief overview of each company before moving into the games themselves. There are also some interviews, which are really informative. On the whole the book is really well put together.
There have been a few complaints that pop up in various Amazon reviews of this book, some of which I don't think are really fair. The book does go more in depth with some games than others, certainly, but the major points are nonetheless covered, and the information is always valuable. The book also tries to be objective (and is clear from context what is objective and what is not), and while at some points I may not agree with a particular part of a review (this is to be expected), I have yet to find a review that could be called unfair or nitpicky as a whole. Also the book seldom puts down a game without clearly listing what the issues were. Another unfair complaint is the black-and-white pictures instead of color, which is, ironically, actually explained on HardcoreGaming101 itself: apparently the publisher would have required them to split the book into two parts and cost them over double. While I would certainly have preferred big, high-res color pictures, in the real world this is a niche book that will likely never turn much of a profit, despite how informative and comprehensive it is.
All that being said, there is one legitimate issue: the proofreading. There are a number of textual and grammatical errors throughout the book, though they aren't as severe as some reviews have made out. The errors aren't every other page, but they do turn up every so often. I didn't notice any real issues with tone or cohesiveness, though some of the book's reviews are certainly better than others. On the whole it was easy to read and understand, and it never really did anything to turn me off.
So while the book isn't perfect and could have used the careful attention of a professional proofreader and editor, it has no major issues and works hard to be comprehensive and fair. In short I love it, consider it one of the best classic gaming books I've ever read, and would recommend it to anyone interested in the genre.
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Top reviews from other countries
N. Walton
The best book I've purchased on gaming in a long time.
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J. Oria
Spoilers, spoilers everywhere!
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Brilliant book, wonderfully researched and hugely informative
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A must have to all adventure game lovers
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