After a fantastic first book, A Guide to Video Game Movies, Christopher Carton's latest games-related tome takes the opposite approach: games based on movies. Given the much meatier subject (there are far more games of movies than movies of games), the author has chosen to split the subject into two volumes, the first of which takes the reader through the period 1982 to 2000. In order to get the contractually obliged crap reference out of the way, will this tome be a box-office smash or an Indy 5 sized flop (topical yet also naff)?
As with every other White Owl publication, it's a well made tome and has the usual high production standards. With 200 plus pages, the layout is pretty straightforward. Each game gets a write up including details of the developer, publisher, years of release and the formats it came out on. Most get a screenshot (some get two), and entries range in size from a third of a page to a full page (Goldeneye 007, Aladdin and Hook are amongst those receive that treatment).
Speaking of the aforementioned Bond classic, the foreword is supplied by non other than Dr David Doak, formerly of Rare and one time supplier of dodgy door decoders. The games themselves are organised in to a variety of subjects/genres.
The coverage for each game is relaxed yet informative, and you'll learn about both the games and the films that inspired them. I for one did not know that Top Gun had been so comprehensively covered - and yet none of those titles had the volleyball scene in them. A missed opportunity for a flight sim/Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball crossover, I feel. Similarly, the author has missed a chance to warn humanity that 007 Racing is dire. Not a "one for the fans", it's just terrible, Muriel! (Why was there never a dating sim based on that Australian classic? A travesty, I tell you, a travesty!)
 |
| The James Corden of Bond video games. |
With over 300 titles given their moment in the sun, this book is also a chance to lay to rest the "movie tie-ins are always crap" myth (although 007 Racing really, really is!). Sure, lazy 8-bit efforts provide a grain of truth to it, just as Goldeneye 007 was a big middle finger to the lie, but on the whole, there are actually some very accomplished gaming experiences featured here and it has inspired me to try and locate some to experience them myself. Got to love Retroarch!
Mr Carton has done it again in writing a cracking walkthrough of a video game genre up to the turn of the century. It will join his other book (as well as a growing range of White Owl publications) on the shelves to await the second volume next year. In the meantime, I'm also preordering his next book, The History of the Adventure Video Game, which is due out next month.
 |
| It's a collection, not a shrine! |
If you want to purchse a copy of A Guide to Movie Based Video Games 1982-2000, you can do so directly from the publishers website here, as well as pick up the author's other books and check out White Owl's growing range of gaming titles. You can also pick it up from the usual physical and online bookstores, and can follow the author on X (fucking stupid name, should have just kept it Twitter) here.
No comments:
Post a Comment