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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
An interesting but limited insight...., 13 Feb 2004
'Zap!: The Rise and Fall of Atari', written during the early 80's, offers a general insight into the company which kicked started the video gaming craze. Focusing on the time span ranging from the creation of Pong, until the sudden crash in the video gaming market in december 1982, the book give some insight into the mechanics behind Atari.Although a good general overview of Atari up until 1983 is presented, it lacks the detailed information that one may come to expect from a book focusing specifically on Atari. Moreover the author appears to lack an understanding of video gaming, failing to recapture the passion in retelling the creation of games such as Pong (like Steven Kent does in ‘The ultimate history of video games) and failing to recognize that the sudden market crash could be almost single-handedly be attributed to the array of abysmal games Atari churned out (Pac-man and E.T. anyone?). In summary, this book offers a very general overview of Atari, from its creation until its demise in 1983 (before it was sold off to Tramiel in 1984). Unfortunately it covers its given topic thinly and lacks the passion of retelling this historic event (in video gaming) in the voice of a true gamer. This is by no means a bad book, however, there are better titles to chose from (as the one mentioned), which offer a greater insight into Atari and are written in a more entertaining manner.
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