*Love goes to Britt for sending me this amazing book as an early Christmas Present, what an amazing guy! 💙
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Image Credit: www.BitmapBooks.com
We have covered many of Bitmap Books’ fine releases here at Games Freezer, with the most recent being Dave Cook’s rather wonderful Run ‘n’ Gun tome. This, their latest, is a very different beast, tackling a genre that has existed since the early ‘80s and was very much been twisting and morphing for decades before settling into (mostly) more sedate, incremental releases in recent years.
The book covers the football (or ‘soccer’ depending on your geographic location) genre from its nascency in the early ‘80s - when the games were effectively variations on the Pong theme - right up through the modern generations where the majority of the releases are ultra realistic and pretty – but perhaps lack the character and individuality that previously made the football genre a more interesting beast, with some incredible goals, some near misses...and some that deserved a red card, and a kicking in the car park.
From Dave Cook - the mind behind the awesome Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’em-Ups - comes this history of run ‘n’ gun shooters (think Contra, Metal Slug etc. and definitely think about Mercs and Rambo III on the Mega Drive, which are a couple of my personal faves), a genre of videogames that – to me at least – almost feels like the very essence of gaming itself.
The requirements of concentration, quick reflexes and (usually) saucy multiplayer action are timeless, and these quintessential essential ingredients allow for quick dip in ‘n’ out gameplay for blasts of fun, whilst requiring the players to lose themselves in the flow and design of the game to really get the most out of it…and the most 10p’s out of your pocket, natch!
It’s a slight change of pace here, from the many forked branches of horror through to a visual compendium focused on the much beloved fan favourite Nintendo 64, whether through many a blistering, thumb-stick breaking multiplayer session of Goldeneye, marvelling at Mario in 3D, or zooming across Hyrule Fields in Zelda, there are millions of memories out there that began with that trusty trident controller in-hand.
From the moment that I caught wind of From Ants to Zombies, the fact that it was covering video game horror – a genre incredibly dear to me – I was desperate to discover what approach this book would take - and as it turns out, it’s possibly the boldest move by Bitmap Books yet, and one that absolutely lives up to the lofty heights that author Alexander Chatziioannou sets out in the first few pages.
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Each of these tomes is beautifully designed, and can be used to fend off burglars, so thick are they with glorious information and imagery. This book, in particular, took me a lot longer than usual to review purely because I was poring over each page, devouring the words and constantly getting side-tracked in marking where I was and then watching YouTube videos on the releases covered therein, because the passion of the text drew me in so much that I yearned to find out as much as I could about the games covered.
I’d had my eye on the CRPG Book since a reprint was announced several months ago, and I vividly recall spending a few moments on the Bitmap Books website genuinely getting lost in the cover art alone.
I’ve said this before, I’m not a student of art, and the visual arts are very much not my forte, so when something grabs me in that aspect, I really enjoy the sensation, a sensation which was spiked upon seeing the cover of this book. The richness of the illustration here absolutely captures the feeling of RPG gaming, where the imagination takes over and boundaries between game and gamer bleed into each other, the sense of dynamism and kineticism in the characters bursting forth from the screen is ‘framed-poster-worthy’ (definitely a term, don’t look it up) in how it almost hypnotises the reader into opening the book and getting lost in the pages. Awesome stuff, thank you Jan Pospíšil!
I have to spend a second just high-fiving the packaging that Bitmap Books use. As someone who gets vinyl in the post – a notoriously delicate product - there have been occasions when I’ve actually been nervous when opening parcels due to the condition in which they’ve turned up.
I’m not a snob, but the thought of a warped or bent record sends shivers up my spine! With Bitmap Books, though – this is never an issue, as the packaging is generous, tightly bound and could probably stop a close-range shotgun blast. Good.
In the case of I’m Too Young to Die: The Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters, it was the sections on oddities and ultimately unsuccessful titles that had grazes with greatness that really caught my attention.
It was eye-opening to find out just how much experimentation was going on, especially in the world of PC gaming in the mid-’90s, and I found myself marking a page to watch some gameplay footage of these games - that had somehow passed me by in my formative years – before continuing my reading and inevitably repeating the process a few pages later, always a good sign when reading a book such as this.
When I previously covered Bitmap Books’ A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games (https://www.gamesfreezer.co.uk/2021/10/bitmap-books-guide-to-japanese-role.html) I felt quite certain that I had read the definitive ‘gaming book’.
It was so rich with information and so well-presented and researched that I couldn’t imagine it really being bettered. It was a pleasant surprise then, when receiving A Gremlin in the Works, as the book had a totally different and arguably bigger impact on me as I read through it.
It’s extremely early days, but following my time with the book, I can very much imagine this ending up in my year-end list for 2022…and it’s currently January.
Having previously covered – and been extremely impressed by – Bitmap Books’ Game Boy: The Box Art Collection (https://www.gamesfreezer.co.uk/2021/05/bitmap-books-game-boy-box-art.html), I already knew what to expect from them this time around. Solid, robust packaging, luxurious, glossy paper as well as well-researched and well-presented text augmented by crisp imagery and screenshots. Good.
