Book Review - Game Over by David Sheff
This is the first book review that our site has had and possibly will be our only one as not many books have been written about the NES and not many would be worth buying after reading Game Over. Game Over covers the company nintendo from its very beginnings up through the end of the NES. There are some extra chapters at the end that were added on later that also cover the Super Nes and make some predictions, but they are not really worth reading. First off this book may not be for everyone, if your one of those people who took two seconds, downloaded an emulator and 5 roms, just stop reading now and look at our reviews section. However, if you grew up with the NES or just plain love the thing then, like me, you may find this book fascinating.
The most detailed parts of the book pertain to nintendo's business practices. As a kid I always grew up thinking that nintendo was the greatest, coolest, nicest company around. Well Game Over sure dispells that notion. Nintendo had some very selfish business practices which certainly led to some ill feelings towards them in the gaming community. However, they felt that they needed to use these tactics to prevent another crash, like the one that happened to Atari, when everybody and there mom was making a video game. Every game had to go through Nintendo. You had to get your chips, cases, and that little seal of approval, and you had to pay for it all. By the way I never realized that seal was legit, I just figured they threw it on to sell more games. These practices are probably the reason that unliscensed games started cropping up and are certainly the reason Atari(Tengen) tried to break out and sell games on their own. Game Over goes into this stuff in insane detail, which personally I loved. David Sheff also dedicates at least one whole chapter to the Tengen lawsuit which is very interesting.
Game Over also covers in great detail all the people behind Nintendo. Ever wonder who Howard was from the famed Howard and Nester cartoons in Nintendo Power. You won't wonder after you've read this book. It covers the people behind both Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan. I found these sections to be fairly interesting but sometimes the detail was a little more than I wanted. However, I certainly came away well informed.
Do you love the game Tetris, do you want to know how it got here from Russia. Well Game Over has all the details. When I say all the details, I mean it. I was begging for them to stop, but they wouldn't. Sheff covers every single person who had their hand in the pie, it was a lot of them, and who got screwed in the deal, it was most of them. In the end the saddest part is the creator of Tetris himself got virtually nothing.
The only real complaint I have for this book is that it concentrates too much on the business side and not enough on the individual games. I would have loved to read more information on how the ideas for games like Legend of Zelda and Metroid were conceived. Also I would have liked to read about the expanded memory capabilities that were introduced and which games used these. However there is a great story about the creation of Donkey Kong or stubborn Kong. Overall I would say if you are a big Nes fan this book is well worth the time. I must say though, I won't blame you if you skip the second half of the Tetris chapter.
By the way I was able to find this book at Electronic Boutique for only 2 bucks about 7 months ago.
Agent K