LudoScience

History of videogames (focused book)

Author(s) : Benjamin Berget
Editor : Mon Petit Editeur
Publication date : 05-18-2014
Language : french

Following the first book in the series, this book continues to explore the history of controversial video games. This second volume focuses on games about "torture" (Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, Chiller, Manhunt, Mad World...) and horror-themed games (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, The House of the Dead, Sanitarium, Rule of Rose...). Each game and the media controversy that accompanied it are presented using a variable number of pages. Here, this book tends to suffer from the same flaw as the first one: the author tackled too many topics for the space he got available, and so he couldn't explore them all as deeply as necessary. But, despite how much the author seems passionate about his topic, he hopefully managed to reduce this flaw in this second book. Besides the presentation of the games, this book offers three captivating chapters about the danger of violent video games, the way mass media are dealing with video games, and the addiction to video games. Extremely well documented, these chapters alone are a good reason to read this book, alongside with a new interview with Bart "Shane Fenton" George, one of the best specialist of video games related media controversies in France. Overall, it's a passionating book about a captivating subject.