My Review
Received from Pen & Sword in return for an honest review. Sometimes, rarely, I join in on the video game sessions at Thursday games group. Mostly I sit and watch the others and write or play on my tablet. I don’t have the coordination to play Mario. Especially if it’s a racing game, I fall off into the void far more often than you’d expect. I have memories of playing various games and using various systems when I was younger, but never got as into gaming as many people did and do. Slotting what I remember into the longer history of gaming is interesting to me.
This book is encyclopaedic in its coverage of the Mario and Sonic games, some of which I played in the early 1990s (my sister had a Game Boy, our cousin had a Saga Megadrive) and covers many other games and franchises in less detail. There are also bad jokes.
It’s definitely a book for enthusiasts of the genre, but as a casual reader, I enjoyed the random bits of information. If you want to get into platform video games it’s probably a decent gazetteer of the genre and a starting point for exploring. The writing is decent, informative and amusing.
I’m not sure I’d pay £25 for it, given the length, but it is a solid hardback, and the paper and printing quality is good. I’m probably going to give my copy away to someone at games group or donate it to the Little Autistic Library at Neurospace.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 