1001 Video Games: You Must Play Before You Die
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £2.00
Trade in 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £2.00, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Product Description
In fewer than fifty years video games have become one of the most popular forms of entertainment, but which are the best games, the ones you must play? Video game expert Tony Mott presents 1001 of the best video games from around the world and on all formats, from primitive pioneering consoles like Atari's VCS to modern-day home entertainment platforms such as Sony's PlayStation 3. Each entry includes an illustrated screenshot of the game in action, along with details of its original release date and platform, with informative and authoritative text outlining its play mechanics, artistic qualities, contributions to its respective genre, and more. From Donkey Kong to Doom and from Frogger to Final Fantasy;1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die is the essential guide to everything from the old favorites to those breaking new ground. These are the games that should not be missed.
About the Author
Tony Mott has been playing video games since 1975, and has worked in the fields of video game art, production and, most prolifically, journalism. He is the editor-in-chief of internationally renowned video game magazine Edge.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Those looking for a successor to Edge Magazine's fantastic "100 Best Games to Play Today" from their 200th issue will be sorely disappointed. Whilst you're certainly getting your money's worth with a book so large so as to require two firm hands on it at all times, its quality is all over the place, and many of is inclusions - questionable.
Though many of the game descriptions take up a good half page, the prose of those that I've delved into is a tad wooden and spends far too much time outlining each game's plot and mechanics rather than justifying its inclusion in the book. You're left with an encyclopedia of sorts, one that'll certainly tell you what to expect when you pop Advanced Warfighter into your 360, but one that doesn't spend enough time telling you why you'd want to do it in the first place.
Tony Mott edits a magazine widely regarded to be the best in the business, but the decision to take a wide range of contributors from other magazines leads to varying degrees of quality within the book. The lack of a single voice is harmful in other ways too, with some passages that undermine the inclusion of other games. There's a slight sense here that the editorial team struggled to find 1001 quality inclusions, but then I sincerely doubt I'd be able to do much better.
Anyone looking for an encyclopedia of some of the greatest games ever made could do a lot worse than this book. Having said that, if you can find a back issue of Edge 200, its superior inclusions and more eloquent brevity might be a better place to start.
Though many of the game descriptions take up a good half page, the prose of those that I've delved into is a tad wooden and spends far too much time outlining each game's plot and mechanics rather than justifying its inclusion in the book. You're left with an encyclopedia of sorts, one that'll certainly tell you what to expect when you pop Advanced Warfighter into your 360, but one that doesn't spend enough time telling you why you'd want to do it in the first place.
Tony Mott edits a magazine widely regarded to be the best in the business, but the decision to take a wide range of contributors from other magazines leads to varying degrees of quality within the book. The lack of a single voice is harmful in other ways too, with some passages that undermine the inclusion of other games. There's a slight sense here that the editorial team struggled to find 1001 quality inclusions, but then I sincerely doubt I'd be able to do much better.
Anyone looking for an encyclopedia of some of the greatest games ever made could do a lot worse than this book. Having said that, if you can find a back issue of Edge 200, its superior inclusions and more eloquent brevity might be a better place to start.
42 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'll just get straight to the point. The editors of the book have failed completely in the balancing of their selection of games for the book.
I'll give some examples:
1. According to the book there are 10 games worth playing from the entire 70's, yet there are 106 games from 2009. Yes, I'm not kidding, 106. In fact, the 70's, 80's and 90's make up half the book, with he 00's taking up the second half. It's almost unbelievable how skewed the book is in this sense. The entries for the last few years read more as a list of every game published in that year, rather than a list of recommendations. Even games that were met with mixed reviews at best are included. I smell kickbacks. In fact I kinda hope they were involved, because someone settling on this list without them is just too sad to be true.
2. Less importantly, but still an issue is a sometimes extreme bias towards certain genres. Most noticeably, there is an over-abundance of SCHMUPS and great lack of insight into the development of the graphic adventure genre. For some reason they've listed every single LucasArts adventure game, while listing nearly none of the competition, leaving a severely unbalanced picture. After all, this is supposed to be 1001 games you must play before you die, right? Not the 1001 best games every made. Because if it's the latter, then I guess the book is fine, but for the former I find it completely fails to give an appropriate overview of the development of the genres.
Before you buy it, at least keep in mind what kind of book you're getting. It reads more like an advertisement for recent games than any serious attempt to collate a list of games you must or should play. I had it on pre order from the day I heard about it, and I can tell you without dropping a beat, I would not have bought it had I know the direction they've taken the book in, which is a great shame because 1001 albums, books and movies are all great book. This one, however, is not.
I'll give some examples:
1. According to the book there are 10 games worth playing from the entire 70's, yet there are 106 games from 2009. Yes, I'm not kidding, 106. In fact, the 70's, 80's and 90's make up half the book, with he 00's taking up the second half. It's almost unbelievable how skewed the book is in this sense. The entries for the last few years read more as a list of every game published in that year, rather than a list of recommendations. Even games that were met with mixed reviews at best are included. I smell kickbacks. In fact I kinda hope they were involved, because someone settling on this list without them is just too sad to be true.
2. Less importantly, but still an issue is a sometimes extreme bias towards certain genres. Most noticeably, there is an over-abundance of SCHMUPS and great lack of insight into the development of the graphic adventure genre. For some reason they've listed every single LucasArts adventure game, while listing nearly none of the competition, leaving a severely unbalanced picture. After all, this is supposed to be 1001 games you must play before you die, right? Not the 1001 best games every made. Because if it's the latter, then I guess the book is fine, but for the former I find it completely fails to give an appropriate overview of the development of the genres.
Before you buy it, at least keep in mind what kind of book you're getting. It reads more like an advertisement for recent games than any serious attempt to collate a list of games you must or should play. I had it on pre order from the day I heard about it, and I can tell you without dropping a beat, I would not have bought it had I know the direction they've taken the book in, which is a great shame because 1001 albums, books and movies are all great book. This one, however, is not.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Gathering a list of the top 1001 'must play' games is not an easy task, I couldn't name 1001 games to be honest - and even if I could, I'd struggle to argue that they were *all* 'must play' titles. This book though makes a gallant attempt to gather together a collection of the most essential video games throughout gaming history...
I like the way the book is divided into five chapters, each covering a decade from the 1970s onwards - it's a much better way to organise the book rather than alphabetical order or a countdown to the ultimate essential game (which would be far too subjective).
As you flick through the decades you can see how video games have become more complex as they have evolved from addictively simple yet genius concepts through to virtual worlds the gamer can explore. Graphics have obviously improved over the years and seeing over a thousand games organised by decade enables you to appreciate how the gaming landscape has changed over the last 40 years. Video games are often looked at with derision and many consider them to be a low form of entertainment, that is entirely unfair and this book helps to show the cultural impact games have had, and also how games tend to reflect the zeitgeist.
Many of the games in this book are ones I've never heard of, to be honest though I'm not a massive gamer these days. For me the biggest thrill of the book is reading about the '80s games on various formats including the ZX Spectrum (in my mind the greatest home computer ever!) and getting pangs of nostalgia as I re-familiarise myself with titles I spent many hours enjoying when I was younger.
Each game has an informative and interesting right-up giving details of the game plot, the developers and also comments on influences and future incarnations. The type of information seems to vary widely between entries but I suppose it must be difficult to standardise the sort of information the book contains - especially for games which have a quirky story behind them. Impressively each game is accompanied by a picture/screenshot. The images are high quality and full colour - there are many full page images too to show off sprites and pixels in their full glory.
In a nutshell: A great book which may miss games for whom some would consider essential, and contain some which seem dubious. I would have liked to have seen more '70s and '80s "golden age of gaming" titles included as there does appear to be a bias toward the '90s onwards. But with over a thousand games covered you should find that the majority of games you've enjoyed over the years are here. A perfect book for anyone who loves gaming, and for those who were once gamers it will bring back lots of fond memories. This isn't just a book of video games, it's a repository of cultural history.
I like the way the book is divided into five chapters, each covering a decade from the 1970s onwards - it's a much better way to organise the book rather than alphabetical order or a countdown to the ultimate essential game (which would be far too subjective).
As you flick through the decades you can see how video games have become more complex as they have evolved from addictively simple yet genius concepts through to virtual worlds the gamer can explore. Graphics have obviously improved over the years and seeing over a thousand games organised by decade enables you to appreciate how the gaming landscape has changed over the last 40 years. Video games are often looked at with derision and many consider them to be a low form of entertainment, that is entirely unfair and this book helps to show the cultural impact games have had, and also how games tend to reflect the zeitgeist.
Many of the games in this book are ones I've never heard of, to be honest though I'm not a massive gamer these days. For me the biggest thrill of the book is reading about the '80s games on various formats including the ZX Spectrum (in my mind the greatest home computer ever!) and getting pangs of nostalgia as I re-familiarise myself with titles I spent many hours enjoying when I was younger.
Each game has an informative and interesting right-up giving details of the game plot, the developers and also comments on influences and future incarnations. The type of information seems to vary widely between entries but I suppose it must be difficult to standardise the sort of information the book contains - especially for games which have a quirky story behind them. Impressively each game is accompanied by a picture/screenshot. The images are high quality and full colour - there are many full page images too to show off sprites and pixels in their full glory.
In a nutshell: A great book which may miss games for whom some would consider essential, and contain some which seem dubious. I would have liked to have seen more '70s and '80s "golden age of gaming" titles included as there does appear to be a bias toward the '90s onwards. But with over a thousand games covered you should find that the majority of games you've enjoyed over the years are here. A perfect book for anyone who loves gaming, and for those who were once gamers it will bring back lots of fond memories. This isn't just a book of video games, it's a repository of cultural history.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great time waster.
I keep this on my desk at work and pore through it whenever I'm bored or waiting for a meeting. Well written and a great way to start a debate amongst fellow gamers! Read more
Published 4 months ago by Phil
A worthwhile purchase despite potential controversy!
It's been eight years since the brilliant 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die came out, with its unbiased and enthusiastic selection not judging or rating its films, but... Read more
Published 16 months ago by N. Blake
Pretty good.
How many billions of "best games evar!" lists are there in the world? Too many. And they're all pretty dumb, they're all just giving people things they want to hear, rather than... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Jim Todd
The bible for game designers
It's a pity that not all the 1001 games have a picture. But most of them do, so this really is the bible for game designers. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Wms Schmitz
Almost there...
A hefty book, this one, you'll get tired hands holding it so extra support is recommended! It promises 1001 games to play before you die, but can also be seen as an overview of... Read more
Published 19 months ago by David Andreasen
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
