There is way more information here than I was initially expecting. It begins with pinball machines, early computers, and their creators and continues to the present day with next gen game consoles and mobile apps.

This book is pretty comprehensive for the format. It covers a good deal of time and connects things together through associations between various creators. I did lose track of who was connected with which system over time. The amount of information covered cause the book to move at a slower pace than I wanted. While I wanted information on more recent game companies, I appreciate the groundwork the writers laid with the periods they chose to focus on.

The biggest strength of the book has got to be the art. When talking about video games, it makes sense to include visual references. The creators go all out with visual references to numerous video game characters and franchises. They play around with page layout at times, which I feel works very well. Fans of video games will get a lot out of the book from the art alone. Choosing the comic format fits perfectly with this topic.

The story of videogames is a story of creativity and of technology. The book shows the born of technologies that enabled the development of videogames across the two World Wars, and shows the evolution of videogames also in terms of console and complexity of the games.
More details are provided of some key developers that changed the world of video games and of the games that now are iconic (like Pacman, Final Fantasy VII, Zork,..).
The text is full of reference to video games (icons, images, characters, ...) that can be fully appreciated by gamers.

What if instead of textbooks schools used comics to teach students? That’s the idea behind Jonathan Hennessey and Jack Mcgowan’s “Comic Book Story of Video Games.” This is the history of video games as told in comic form. It’s a great way to tell the history.

It’s important to clarify that this is primarily the history of the technology of games, not about video games as art. The book literally starts with the discovery of electricity. It then proceeds to chronicle the technological developments that made video games possible. This means that the majority of the comic occurs before Atari and the 1983 video game crash, which in most other books would be taken as the starting point for modern video game history. Nintendo, Playstation, and Xbox are all briefly covered in the last 20% of the book.

This focus provided some unique insights into the history of video game technology. I was particularly interested in seeing how university computer labs really led the early innovations in gaming. However, the focus on tech does leave some gaps in this history of video games. The book doesn’t spend nearly enough time on other types of innovations in the medium, such as narrative and controller interfaces. For example, the book doesn’t even mention Mario 64, which is credited with revolutionizing control schemes and movement in 3D games. It also doesn’t discuss the trends in game design philosophy, such as the debate about interactivity versus linearity.

Mcgowan’s art style works very well for video games. The art really brings key industry figures and technological advances to life. Hennessey’s writing is often humorous often had me laughing out loud.

This book is a great introduction to the history of video games, but even readers knowledgeable about games will find much to like here. This comic isn’t a substitute for a more in-depth history of games, such as “The Ultimate History of Video Games,” but it’s a great supplement.

Loved the idea and the nostalgia value of it, sadly it fell short of my excited imaginings.

I was very excited about this book! I was expecting a history of video games focusing on the many generation of systems and games. What I got was not quite what I expected. The book spent a long time going back in time to every invention that it took to make the system as well as the politics of the times. This was boring even with video game characters dispersed in the panels. It slowly built up to the gaming I was born into (Sega Genesis) but then quickly flew through the newer systems without even touching the last generation.
I mainly skimmed the first three fourths of the books and just looked at the pictures. playing spot the character until I got to Atari..

Thanks for approving me, but sadly I couldn't finish this book.

I am big gamer myself so I was really looking forward to reading the book, the cover looked amazing, the blurb sounded brilliant. Sadly, when I opened the book I didn't see the gorgeous art that the cover had, but instead a style that I didn't like at ALL.

Add to that that I expected this to be about video games, actual video games, and not every little bit of history that may have to do with video games and then told in such a hodgepodge way that I was quickly confused and, also not unimportant, bored. I also didn't think it fit that there were random video game characters just bouncing around the story. That really didn't make it better, nor did I know if I had to take the history parts seriously, or just laugh because of the silliness.

So thanks, but this wasn't for me.

A great insight into the video game industry and how its evolved over the years. This will definitely appeal to die-hard gamers. It has plenty of facts both historical and technically but I found the comic a bit too long-winded for me.

This is definitely a book by gamers, for gamers. Every page (almost every panel) is loaded with video game references, even when talking about sociopolitical stuff that led up to games going back to WWII. Overall there's a lot of fun stuff here-- interesting stories and information about the history of gaming. It does dive in pretty deep at times to stuff I found less interesting, like the background info about Touring and the like, and then didn't dive into stuff like arcades and the NES and the like as much as I would have liked, but it was still an interesting read, made more fun by the comic book format.

This was an interesting idea. I think the comic narration was a little hard to follow though.

This is terrific! It's packed with research and details, and it's also overflowing with awesome graphics that accurately portray the lives and the energy covered in this history of video games.