This was an illuminating book and I appreciated the diverse look at the visual language of early video games. A total dose of nostalgia in every page, too! Included it in my annual holiday gift books guide.

This is a beautiful book that celebrates the classic era of video games. I highly recommend it for anyone who has interest in video game history.

An excellent book showcasing the history of Atari, and one that will bring about great memories for retro gaming fans. If you know anyone who loves their gaming history, you'll find them highly appreciative.if you buy them a copy of this!

A beautiful journey down memory lane with some intriguing trivia

This read brought back a lot of memories from my youth. I owned an Atari 2600 (still do). Looking at the artwork in this book just brought back the hours of fun my sister and I had as we battled centipedes and space invaders. And it’s a bit saddening to think that the illustrators of the box art haven’t had any credit for their art until now. A great nostalgia book.

'The Art of Atari' by Tim Lapetino with Robert V. Conte is a great tribute to the the branding and packaging of Atari.

Atari is one of the most recognized names in the world, but when they were putting out their consoles, no one knew who the artists were behind the great box art for the games. This book introduces us to most of these people.

They had a tough job because early games were just a series of pixels. They had the job of infusing the buyer with the images to fire their imaginations. From sports stars to fighter pilots, some of the art is iconic. Along with the art, the home and arcade console designs are discussed. There are discussions of almost all of the games and longer articles about Atari concepts that never made it to market. There is art and advertising from over 40 years of the company's history.

I really had a great time reading this book and learning more about the artists behind this iconic brand. It took me back to the early days of coin-op arcades and those early home consoles.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Dynamite Entertainment, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

What a wonderful trip back in time for me! I was the programmer on the team that made the arcade version of the Atari game Centipede. I recommended this great collection of Atari artwork in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session I did recently. I was thrilled to read about the late George Opperman and to see more of his terrific artwork for Centipede, both for the game and for promotional materials.

Children of the '80s, you're going to love this book! If you're like me, middle-aged, with fond memories of playing video games on the classic Atari 2600 console, you are going to love perusing Tim Lapetino's beautiful coffee-table book Art of Atari. This book is a nostalgia trip that took me back to some long, lazy days in front of the TV playing video games.


This large, colorful volume includes sections on the history of Atari, console games, industrial design, and some of the little-known and never-released concepts Atari produced. But the meat of the book, about 3/4 of the content, is the art work of the many Atari games. As Ernest Cline points out in the Foreward, "Even though the crude graphics of the games themselves were never quite as colorful or realistic as the illustrations depicted, that artwork had an almost magical way of elevating your gameplay experience, by helping your imagination bridge the gap between the crude pixelated shapes dancing across your TV screen and the fantastic images they could conjure in your mind's eye."


To say the actual games did not measure up to the fanciful box cover art is an understatement. I looked through the book with my 15-year-old son, who has grown up with Wii and PS3. He was roaring with laughter at the screen images of the games. And it's true; the graphics were truly horrid. Art of Atari is a great reminder that even a game with terrible graphics and a simple one-button joystick can be loads of fun.


But the real focus of Art of Atari is the art and the artists. Lapetino presents page after page of box cover art, accompanying art, concept art, promotional art, and preliminary designs, interspersed with profiles and quotes from the artists. Reading about their work and anecdotes about the industry is fun and insightful. It would have been interested to see more examples of the in-game art. Granted, the crude illustrations may best be forgotten; perhaps Lapetino was right only to include a small screen shot of each game.


Even the most ardent Atari fan will see games and other products in Art of Atari that he or she has never seen or has long forgotten about. Any Atari fan will be longing to dig out the old 2600 and play some games after spending some time with this book. I enjoyed seeing all this art and history compiled in one place.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the complimentary electronic review copy!

I received a copy of this ebook from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book. One of my fondest memories is playing games on the Atari 2600 with my uncle as a child. He passed the system and all of his games on to me so I could enjoy it at home, and enjoy it I did. Getting to experience all of the Atari themed graphics and revisit the livelihood of the system and all it entails was an enjoyable experience for me. I would recommend to any Atari fan out there, and if you keep your eyes peeled with this book, you might notice something you may have missed while you were obsessing over how to get to the next level on Pac Man or soar over those crocs in Pitfall.

What a great idea for a coffee table book. Atari always had fantastic art for its game boxes and cabinets and it's all here in its full glory. I especially liked seeing the art for games that were never released like the Dukes of Hazard game. I would have loved to see 3rd party box art in addition to games produced by Atari but maybe we'll see that in a future book. Hopefully well also get art of Nintendo and Art of Sega books one day.

Not just the history of the revolutionary
gaming platform
But a chronicle
of the amazing artwork
that was an integral part of the
early Atari games
a stunning and beautiful
snapshot of a different time

“We are visual salesmen … we collectively try to interpret both the quality and play value of every Atari game. Above all, graphics must attract players and help them feel that every Atari game is an adventure.” - Creative director/artist George Opperman

Gorgeous artwork that truly stepped up the level of detail and intricacy that could be expected by this genre. I was blown away by page after page of stunning images. I love that these two volumes were, also, put together so as not to just be a gallery but to immerse you in the history that surrounds Atari.

Before getting these books on Netgalley I'd never considered wanting Atari games on an Atari system, but these volumes changed my mind entirely and I've had no regrets on all my leaps of faith with getting these books, getting a system, trying some games.

I love that these books are full of artist commentary as it makes me feel closure to understanding their aims with everything they chose, a secret hidden language even in the most simplistic of graphics, which only became that much richer as they became more complicated over time.

I love coffee-table-style art books. I own more art books than my local library - okay...I live in a very rural area so that's not such a big deal. Still, I own a lot. And when I get the opportunity to review an art book, I am so thrilled an eager. <em>Art of Atari</em> is a little different from many of my art books because the subject is a brand and not an artist or a style - well, sort of. Atari definitely had its own style.

I was never a big electronic gamer (I did own an early version of<em> Pong</em>, but who didn't?) but I was well aware of the Atari games, in large part because of the attractive and active art on the boxes. This book takes us through all that art, recreating the images in beautiful detail, and introduces us to the artists who created this packaging, as well as the art directors responsible for the look.

When the artists look back and comment on how they approached the concept, how they got the look they were trying for, or just reflecting on a particular image we get a real nice glimpse at creativity in process. Too often we don't consider the commercial artist as an <em>artist</em>. I think that Atari recognized the artist in the individuals and it shows. Atari also seemed to be ahead of its time with their inclusion of women in the creative department. Judging by the comments from at least two of the women who were artists on some of the covers, it was a very progressive.

But this is so much more than just a great art book about the art for Atari products. This is also a history book about the early stages of the video game industry and in some ways a social commentary on the era.

We get a look, not just at the art itself, but the process. In some cases we see the sketches and early drafts. My favorite moment in the book was when a piece that was intended for the interior art was selected as the cover art because the intended cover piece was turned down when "the gal in charge of marketing came in to (Steve Hendricks') office after Mike approved it, and said she'd pull it because 'you can't have eyes in that place.'" Though I hadn't noticed (and neither had anyone at Atari until a woman pointed it out) a large pair of eyes was painted right where a woman's breasts were in this particular collage.

And it's not just the cover art that we get in this book. Author Tim Lapetino also digs into the art of the design of the gaming console, showing just how forward-thinking Atari was.

This is a remarkable book. It is something that you can sit and read, or just sit and enjoy the pictures. A hard copy will look nice on my coffee table.

Looking for a good book? <em>The Art of Atari</em> by Tim Lapetino is more than an art book. It is an art book and a history book and something you should very much enjoy.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.