High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, Second Edition 2nd Edition

by Rusel DeMaria (Author), Johnny L. Wilson (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0072231724

ISBN-10: 9780072231724

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In this lavishly illustrated full-color retrospective, discover never-before-seen photos that bring to life the people and stories behind the most popular games of all time, including Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, SimCity, Quake, Myst, Tomb Raider, and more. This is the inside scoop on the history, successes, tricks, and even failures of the entire electronic games industry.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Ultimate History of Electronic Games

“This is a great work that shows the humanity, creativity, and passion inside the art and business of games. The public is playing a lot of games today, and Rusel's and Johnny's fine book gives them a terrific look behind the scenes.” --Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts and 3DO

“As an industry veteran, I am excited to see that Rusel and Johnny have poured their hard work and talent into creating this visual and textual compendium of the history of computer entertainment. Just as I was, I think you will be amazed to see how far we've come in so few years. The pictorial content of this book represents a glimpse at great milestones of our recent past that are quickly going to be impossible to see, perhaps ever again, outside this volume.” --Richard Garriott, computer gaming pioneer, developer of the Ultima series of games, and founder of Origin Systems

This lavishly illustrated full-color retrospective takes you on a guided tour of the evolution of electronic games from blips on a tiny screen in a computer science lab to the multi-billion-dollar industry it has become today. Hundreds of images of arcades, consoles, and PC games span more than 30 years of game history from the beginning to the present day. Meet the people who changed the world of entertainment and hear the tales of their amazing successes and spectacular failures--including many stories that have never been told in print before.

Rusel DeMaria has been a participant and observer in the electronic gaming industry since its inception. He has written nearly 60 strategy guides and is acknowledged as one of the pioneers of that book genre. DeMaria has been a senior editor and columnist for several national magazines, a speaker at the prestigious Computer Game Developer’s Conference as well as other industry events.

Johnny L. Wilson has been group publisher for Wizards of the Coast periodicals (Dragon, Dungeon, Star Wars Gamer, and Star Wars Insider magazines) and editor-in-chief of Computer Gaming World magazine, the world’s oldest PC-specific game magazine. A game reviewer for more than 17 years, he has made frequent appearances as a computer game historian/expert on the History Channel, National Public Radio, and a variety of local television newsmagazines.

About the Author

Rusel DeMaria (Grants Pass, OR) has been an observer and/or participant in the electronic gaming industry since its inception. Beginning in 1980, he began writing professionally about games. He has written nearly 60 strategy guides and is acknowledged as one of the pioneers of that book genre. In addition to his books, Rusel has been a senior editor and columnist for several national magazines. Johnny L. Wilson (Seattle, WA) is Group Publisher for Wizards of the Coast’s magazine group, which includes Dragon, Dungeon, Top Deck, Star Wars Gamer and Star Wars Insider. He is perhaps better known as the former editor-in-chief of Computer Gaming World (1992-1999), the premier magazine for computer-gaming fans.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0072231726
Publisher ‏ : ‎ McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 2nd edition (December 18, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780072231724
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0072231724
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.74 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.9 x 0.89 x 9.9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,711,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,656 in Video & Computer Games
- #6,088 in Computer & Video Game Strategy Guides
- #213,270 in Textbooks

Customer Reviews:
32 ratings

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Navarro Parker

Absolutely terrific! A must read for videogame fans.

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2006

Verified Purchase

An amazing and comprehensive picturebook of all electronic games through history (not just "video" games). This book has some great photos of consoles and game prototypes you may have never heard about -- like the Atari Game Brain and Cosmos. It's just packed with images on thick glossy paper. My only complaints is there were no images of the very first videogame, "Tennis for Two". The book is also so thick and heavy, I don't know how long the binding will last under multiple readings. But these are minor gripes. A must have if you are interested in the beginnings of electronic entertainment.

5 people found this helpful

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John Smith

Outstanding Trip Through Video Game History

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2004

Verified Purchase

Perhaps there are only a few changes since the first edition, but if you've never read the first edition, this is a must-get for video game fans.

Full-color photos of hardware, screenshots, and gaming popular culture (e.g. Atari high score patches) take you through video game history. Not only are systems like Atari, Coleco, Intellevision, Nintendo, Sony, and Sega looked at, the authors also look at specific games and milestones for each hardware platform. A lot of obscure systems are covered and even computers from Commodore, Coleco, Atari, Apple, etc.

The authors have done a great job. From the Nintendo Game and Watch series to Sid Meier's Pirates, a great deal of video game history (past to present) and even memories (for some) are contained within the book. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

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Lonnie Jones

Very comprehensive

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2007

Verified Purchase

I've been designing games for a while now and started programming them. This book was a good book to reference games to see what I could and couldn't program.

As for the actual content of the book... the author makes the material interesting. His organization of the book could have been better. It goes in chronological order (most of the time). The visual design of the book is outstanding. The appendix in the back is good.

Its a great book for the most part.

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2017

Verified Purchase

Excellent book about video game history.

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Amazon Customer

Good book

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2005

Verified Purchase

This book is being used for a college course, and it contains appropriate content.

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Robert J Pitt

Quality book at a great price!

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2015

Nice book!

Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2010

This book was quite impressive when I received. It's quite large both in page-size and in page numbers. It does a great job of telling the history of gaming and includes plenty of insider quotes and point-of-views. It even has many highly detailed pictures. It's definetly worth picking up if your a gamer or interested in the history of the industry.

The book does it's best to cover everything in the history of gaming. But to truly cover everything, you'd have to write 10 volumes of this book. No one could possibly cover everything in one book. As a result, this book has a little bit of favortism. It does an absolutely grand job of covering the early days of gaming. It provides you with a brief history of computers, mechanical games, and pinball machines up to the point of the first video game, Spacewar!, on the PDP-1. From there it provides a very detailed account of the history of gaming in the 70s and early 80s. It focuses on arcade games, The Maganavox Odyssey, Pong, The Fairchild F, the Atari VCS/2600, Handheld Games, Intellivision, and Colecovision, and even early PC games.

Despite the incredible coverage of the 70s and early 80s, it seemed that they slipped a little when it came to the NES & Master System era and beyond. There just wasn't as much covered about the later eras, and not as many personal stories from the programmers and designers like there were for the early era. Even though there wasn't as much coverage, everyone seemed to be represented however. There were sections for NES, Sega Master System, SNES, Handhelds, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, Atari Jaguar, Playstation, Dreamcast, arcade games, PC games, and so many others. Just not as much packed into each section as there were on their early era counterparts.

In addition to the consoles and arcade coverage and their respective companies, there were also many sections that focused on several different prominant third-party software developers including: Midway, Acclaim, Accolade, Activision, Id, Mindscape, Epyx, Enix/Squaresoft, Electronic Arts, Valve, and many others.

I also want to stress that this book is written from the North American point-of-view of the industry. While the Japanese companies are well represented in this book, you will not get a Japanese point-of-view of the industry.

I highly recommend this book to any avid gamer or anyone that is interested in the history of the industry. Even though it may not be absolutely flawless, I have not seen another similar book that comes close to touching this one. This is the one you want.

Helpful

C. Morelock

Know your history!

Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2008

There aren't many books about video game history. It's a sad fact for many of us gamers, and game companies are eager to push to the future while forgetting what's been left behind. Well, High Score is a very good chronicle of "The Story So Far", written by two guys who have been around for much of the ride, Johnny Wilson and Rusel DeMaria. The book gives a pretty good description (however brief) of most of the influential companies in gaming's history, and has plenty of visual punch, with lots of screenshot, box art, and developer photos. My only gripes are that it's not terribly detailed and once again, the binding. But for a good view of the big picture, High Score scores high in content and presentation.

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