LudoScience

History of videogames (focused book)

Author(s) : Collectif
Editor : PK Editions
Publication date : 02-04-2013
Language : french

Games History is a series of magazines in a book-like format (similar to Pix'n Love and IG), with 200 pages dedicated to a defined genre of video games. This third issue is focused on the history of racing games on home consoles. The book starts with a brief general history of racing games on arcade cabinets (70-80's) and on 90's home consoles. It then goes into more details about popular series such as Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, Ridge Racer, Need for Speed, Burnout, Formula One, Colin McRae Rally, etc. While it's not a in-depth book (the idea of the series is apparently to make players discover games rather than explaining their history), we can clearly feel and embrace the passion of the authors for the topic. Many pictures are also enriching the book. Unfortunately, compared to the previous book dedicated to vs. fighting games , this one is less inspired and way more messy. The quality of articles varies greatly from one author to another, and from one game to another. The most common flaw is the author trying to detail all the episodes of a popular series without having the required space to really explain the unique features of each episode. After reading this book, I'm sadly left with an "incomplete information" feeling. However, this book still offers a long list of racing games with a lot of images, alongside with a short personal opinion from the authors about each game.