The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games: Book Review.
The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games is a resource created for collectors by collectors, this book is the work of Bill Kurtz, . The book is pretty a comprehensive hard back guide for people looking to relive memories of the days in the Arcades. Divided into time periods in gaming history, the book covers arcade machines from “The Birth of Video Games 1972 -1976” to “The Modern Era 1986 – Present” or at least 2004 when the book was first published, with each chapter offering up equal helpings of arcade game history and full color photographs of many a coveted machine.
The book has approx 238 pages packed with about 600 photos, I never knew there was so many Pong type machines in the early years so this first section was a fascinating read, each page has a varied amount of machines covered, all with a small summary of the Arcade including a value, these values are all in US Dollar’s and I’m not sure these values are representative worldwide but its a good starting point.
To say every Arcade manufactured is covered would be an overstatement but even with my limited knowledge I’m sure a vast majority are including some long-forgotten machines and even some you’ve probably never heard of. Another lovely touch is the random appearance of advertising posters of some of the more famous arcade machines.
The only issue I have is the low resolution images, this coupled with the fact the book is a collectors reference guide might steer most readers away, for me, its revitalised my passion for arcade machines, so much so I went and purchased one.
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RVG Rating - 7/107/10
Summary
To say every Arcade manufactured is covered would be an overstatement but even with my limited knowledge I’m sure a vast majority are including some long-forgotten machines and even some you’ve probably never heard of.
Retro head and key holder of RVG.
