Yancakes wrote:I've been reading Extra Lives, despite the fact that the author is (openly) a console-only gamer, and he occasionally gets some factual information wrong, he has an incredibly good grasp of, basically, WHY we play videogames, what makes a game good, and why we ignore things like silly writing and cheesy plot.
I took that one out of the library and decided to put it aside based on the scathing reviews on Amazon. I may give it a second chance since a handful of you guys thought it was all right.
I have read (and I apologize for all the images... I'm considering editing them out):
1.
This one I thought was really interesting. A non-gamer adult decides to get into the hobby, and is fascinated by how video games go about teaching him the skills he needs to gain mastery of them. He points out that video games are often downright grueling, not the nonstop childish funtime they are often stereotyped as, and yet he is still driven to play harder and better for arbitrary scores. Where does that drive come from? And how can it be wielded in school to get kids similarly excited about their chemistry tests? It's more study than memoir and can be a difficult read at points, and he gets the occasional fact wrong (e.g. Tails is not a squirrel!), but I forgive him for both those things in relation to how interesting I found the overall book to be.
2.
The cover is awful but the book itself is excellent. This is a collection of essays from various sources pertaining to gender and gaming culture that were published circa 1990. The big question of the compilation seems to be: does having a "girl games" genre specifically catered to feminine tastes help or hinder girls who game? It includes interviews with bigwigs at Mattel and SEGA, classroom studies that examine what sorts of games elementary-aged boys and girls design when given simple tools to do so and whether or not boys are innately more technically savvy than girls, personal statements from women Quake players who had a thriving subculture back in the day, and so on. It's definitely a scholarly read and takes time, but there's a lot of interesting stuff in it -- particularly because every other person has a different opinion and conclusion than the article that came before them.
3.
I say this counts because it's the Woz. Woz is not the greatest writer in the world, but I enjoyed this little glimpse into his life and what other techies of his day were doing.
4.
I have my issues with this one, but I found it an informative read because, for instance, I don't know squat about sports games, and they did the research for me. It's mostly a run through the history of a bunch of genres, but it has some interesting nuggets in there and doesn't fly through the material at breakneck speed. The authors' voices come out more in the writing than I think they should, since the book is supposed to be unbiased and looks like a textbook (e.g. they harp on how impossible the King's Quest games were excessively), but it's worth it if you just agree to disagree with their thinly-veiled opinions sometimes.
5.
This is not exclusively about gaming, but there's a whole lot of it in there. I thought this book succeeded extremely well in balancing memoir and research. This guy tries to track the origin of the word "nerd" and its stereotype through history (in theory and in practice), but it's way more interesting than that sounds. He covers tons of stuff from
Pride and Prejudice to Anime Los Angeles, Ham Radios to Halo. And the author hangs back enough that I don't feel his presence seeking my approval of his life or work. It's just all pretty thoughtful and I really enjoyed this one.
6.
I don't completely recommend this one, but it deserves a mention if only for the chapter about the Society for Creative Anachronism and the one about a physically disabled woman who feels liberated by watching her World of Warcraft avatar runing through fields. That sounds cheesy, but it's very enlightening. This is another author who tries to posture for his audience and prove that he's either the absolute coolest or embarrassingly nerdiest guy out there, but maybe not everyone else will be as annoyed by that as I was. I'd still suggest reading
American Nerd before this one.
7.
This book made me crazy. I don't recommend it. One or two chapters were interesting, but on the whole the writer's narrative was all over the place and read like an amateur blog. He doesn't prove his thesis, and he doesn't even explain the title anywhere in the book. Poor planning.
8.
This book is about Japanese culture's recent populatrity explosion in the west and focuses more on the history and marketing techniques behind that explosion, but that naturally deals a lot with video games. This book is excellent. Totally awesome. Another tough read at times, but if you settle in for it it's fascinating.
I apologize if anyone takes one of my suggestions and then hates the book!
