Video Game Bible 1985-2002 Andy Slaven, et. al review by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu) Created: Jan 16, 2004 Updated: Jan 16, 2004 http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/vgb.txt The Video Game Bible (VGB) is a "guide" to many of the game systems (but not the PSX) between the years listed above. Its format is very much like that of the Digital Press Collector's Guide: each system is given an intro, followed by game lists with rarity and price guidelines and (usually) a brief description of the game as well as its merits and faults. The good: --------- * Pictures of game boxes which appear on almost every page and that they are usually in alphabetical order * The number of game systems covered * The game lists and rarity/price bits The superficially bad: ---------------------- * The cover. The picture on the cover is of a young male face, perhaps of stone, perhaps just gray, surrounded by an electrical (?) blue mist and framed in a fuzzy orange/red. Possibly they were going for the technological Oracle look or perhaps it's a post-post-modern duck. I'm old, so it's lost on me. * The name. No subtlety here. The bad: -------- * There are many, many typos. * There are an obscene number of factual mistakes. Here is one on page 10 (!): "Asteroids was so popular in Japan that it caused a national coin shortage." An errata to this book would be an enormous undertaking. * Many of the game descriptions and commentary are so insipid as to be almost useless, save for the TG-16 and Turbo Duo ones. * Some of the game systems "covered," (and listed on the back cover) such as the XEGS, FM Towns Marty, PC-FX and others are given only a one-page writeup. * "Game Facts," many of which turn out to be trivia questions, answers to trivia questions or non-fact facts, are one-liners at the bottom of most pages. It's annoying when the "facts" are accurate, simply intolerable when they aren't. * On the top of some pages there are small boxes containing a part of some larger picture. Page 383 addresses these: "These were created for your amusement, but the fun is figuring out how to use them. The only hint we can give you is that the solution is mathematical." Oh, yes. Video Game "Bible" featuring Highlights Puzzle. * Political rants Here is the entry for the CD32 game, _Global Effect_: "This is similar in concept and execution to that of Sim Earth, though this version closely watches things like global warming (evidence that this was created when children still believed what they learned from Captain Planet instead of leading scientists that made one thing clear: that global warming is nothing but a plot by environmental groups to get rich off of the American public's sympathy for all things green.)" Now, I'm not so arrogant as to claim to know something that I don't. I have not studied the literature, so I cannot make an informed judgment about this issue. However, whether global warming is a fact beyond doubt, a complete hoax or somewhere in between, one thing is very clear: a rant about it DOESN'T BELONG IN A BOOK ABOUT VIDEO GAMES! Take it to talk.environment.nobody.listens.anyway or your favorite political forum. The inexcusable: ---------------- * There are no references. None. It is simply amazing that these guys know all of this, by themselves. One bit, however, hits too close to home and I can't let it pass. Here is their entry for 7800 Impossible Mission: " ... Certain objects in the game cannot be collected, and therefor (sic) the game cannot be beaten. However, for the European readers out there, the PAL version was fixed before released." And here is the entry I amended for the 2600/7800 FAQ, back when I was the maintainer: ** "Q: Is 7800 Impossible Mission really impossible? A: Yes. The cart was released with a bug where some of the pieces you need were hidden under computer terminals, but the terminals cannot be searched. This bug was fixed, but Atari probably never released the updated version. The PAL version is not impossible, as the programmer of the PAL version fixed the bug. A special thanks to Harry Dodgson for this tidbit." ** The VGB people have a lot of people to thank, but I sincerely doubt anyone will ever hear a word. **** In short, the game lists, rarity and price guide and pictures are nice but skip most of the writing. For $30, it's a tough sell.