Rating: 
Summary: Do you have "Arcade Fever"?
Review: I went into this book thinking to myself "it's just a coffee table book with some fun facts in it" but after reading it I found it to be full of fond memories of my video game induced youth. It does contain some fun facts but it iis in color and this book displays some of the games that I remember spending my entire allowance on [Burgertime, Tapper, and Donkey Kong Junior]. Just about any arcade game that that was a part of your life from the 80's is in here and if you are into video games you will find yourself reading more and more to find out more about the other video games that you might have missed while you were too busy pumping quarters in your local Pac-Man machine. This book is not really in depth but it is a good read and a great way to kill some time. My only complaint is that I wish that Mr. Sellers had included some more of those great 80's games that stole my quarters [Bump n' Jump and Night Driver were not featured while games like Death Race I and II and Chiller only got mentioned for their violence]. Other than that, if you loved to spend your time at the arcade, whether you were a child, teen, or adult, Mr. Sellers book is worth the price for the memories alone.
Rating: 
Summary: Nostalgic blast from a guy who KNOWS classic games!
Review: I've spent a great deal of my life collecting, preserving and protecting the history of videogames through our museum exhibit VIDEOTOPIA, so I always hope for the best but fear the worst when a new videogame book hits the shelves. Arcade Fever, despite a silly title, is a FANTASTIC book.We had the pleasure of assisting (very slightly) in the production of the book and this guy knows his games, and more to the point, he knows what made us LOVE them. This is a fun and very visual walk through some of the greatest videogames of the classic era. If you are looking for the rush that you'd get walking into a great 80's arcade - this is the best way for you to get a good dose of a great golden-age arcade. Close your eyes and you can hear the sound effects! Great book, great fun. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: THE best book about arcade video games EVER
Review: If you want the feeling of walking into a great 1980's arcade again - GET THIS BOOK. That's exactly what it's like.
Rating:
Summary: THE best book about arcade video games EVER
Review: If you want the feeling of walking into a great 1980's arcade again - GET THIS BOOK. That's exactly what it's like.
Rating:
Summary: Nicely done, but the "humor" can be grating
Review: If you're looking for insider stories, this book isn't the one to get, despite the interviews with Nolan Bushnell and the Pac Man Fever guys. If you're looking for a neat descent into video arcade nostalgia, complete with full-color pictures, or a review of the coolest video games of the golden age of the arcade, you probably do want this. The author's sense of humor can be irritating at times, but is overall tolerable, and his questions during interviews are interesting (but far too short).
Rating:
Summary: the ultimate book for arcade collectors
Review: in this book are all the great classics with pics and description. Pong, Donkey Kong, Bomb Jack, Galaxian, Galaga, Asteroids, Packman, Time Pilot......, many background infos even about bootlegs games, a lot of pics. This is THE book for arcade collectors but only 160 pages, information quality : A+ paper quality : A+ pictures quality : A+
Rating: 
Summary: A self-indulgent waste
Review: John Sellers' Arcade Fever finds its focus early on--and unfortunately, that focus is not classic coin-ops--it seems to be the author himself. It's one man's egotistical "memoircade," offering little to arcade fans who are not named John Sellers. There are several things going wrong at once. Sellers, an ex-game show writer and the author of a book on pop-culture, sprinkles snippets about bad television and junk food liberally throughout--so liberally that you almost forget that the point here is video games. The reader cares about Crazy Climber, not Cookie Crisp--and since no meaningful connection between the two is ever drawn, the entire book ends up feeling forced, an excercise in "look at what I remember that you do not" false cleverness. It's not that he has chosen bad games to spotlight--he's got the best of the best, including obvious biggies like Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man through to underappreciated gems like Time Pilot and Rally-X--he simply doesn't seem to be able to discuss them on their own merits. Yet when Sellers does discuss the games, it's in the past tense, as if none of these games exist any more (clearly, they do--he used pictures of the Videotopia collection). Plus, it's simply not very interesting to hear the author describe what playing these 50 games was like (on Dig Dug: "To get maximum pointage, you had to dig a deep tunnel underneath a rock and wait for multiple bad guys to come to papa"). It would be far more enjoyable to seek them out yourself and experience them first hand--and if the book has any positive effect, perhaps this is it. The book is repeatedly disrupted by a juvenile and distracting ribald sense of humor (introducing Asteroids: "If Pong was heavy petting and Space Invaders was getting to third base...") that feels out of place. Yes, Dragon's Lair's Princess Daphne was hot. Yes, the joystick is phallic. Get over it. There are too many pages of forced, corny jokes and pointless sidebars, such as Ms. Pac-Man's fashion critique (in lieu of the real and very interesting story of how the game went from illicit bootleg to official sequel), unfunny fake game-to-movie adaptations, and an odd, ongoing vendetta against/fetish for the obscure game Pooyan. Good interviews with Nolan Bushnell, Eugene Jarvis, preservationist Keith Feinstein, and "Pac-Man Fever" creators Buckner & Garcia are nearly swallowed up by the pointless asides. Unfortunately, there's not much evidence of research here, merely memories. Things are described (rare game television commercials, hard-to-find sequels, bonus stages) that should have and could have been illustrated. Some facts are wrong and others are simply clouded by poor design--screenshots of sequels are mixed in with those of the original game without noting which is which. The blame for that, along with sloppy cropping of screenshots, photo pages that are clearly filler, and the lackluster, whatever-came-with-Windows font selection for game titles (why not run the original logos for all the games?) is shared with designer Corinda Cook. However, Steve Belkowitz's numerous photos of arcade machines are clear and vivid and save an otherwise ugly layout. Arcade Fever could have been an excellent blend of history and nostalgia; instead, it reads like the work of a frustrated stand-up comedian--self-indulgent, and ultimately, a waste for arcade fans. John Sellers is not a video game historian--he's merely an observer, and therefore can offer no more insight or detail than you or I.
Rating: 
Summary: At least there are some nice cab shots
Review: Like Supercade, this collection doesn't bring much new to the table for the retrogame fan. Just seems like another attempt to cash in on our age brackets' nostalgia. Assembled within are a number of games from the golden age of arcades. The choices themselves are safe, and look like they could have been compiled easily from Videotopia or Mame32's Golden Age folder. The authors irreverent commentary has been touched upon by other reviewers; I also found it off putting and juvenile. Really the only thing going for this book were the cabinet shots. The screen snaps were once again ripped from Mame without much credit, but at least they weren't run through Photoshop with a failing art students eye like Van Burnham did in Supercade. Any factual information the author provided, beyond his own hackneyed description of gameplay, could easily be found in Mame's history.dat file. First Quarter by Kent is still a benchmark for these types of retrospect even though that book didn't necessarily concentrate solely on the arcade market. For those interested in retrogaming who may not already know: Mame32, the Win32 GUI version of Mame, at version .76 [4499 arcade games supported] seeks to preserve these games through emulation, it also facilitates the creation and collection of marquees, screen shots, control panels, cabinets, flyers, and historical information about designers, stories, etc. in one place. The program itself, as a living documentation project, far exceeds written efforts like this. Just google on Mame32 to find it.
Rating:
Summary: At least there are some nice cab shots
Review: Like Supercade, this collection doesn't bring much new to the table for the retrogame fan. Just seems like another attempt to cash in on our age brackets' nostalgia. Assembled within are a number of games from the golden age of arcades. The choices themselves are safe, and look like they could have been compiled easily from Videotopia or Mame32's Golden Age folder. The authors irreverent commentary has been touched upon by other reviewers; I also found it off putting and juvenile. Really the only thing going for this book were the cabinet shots. The screen snaps were once again ripped from Mame without much credit, but at least they weren't run through Photoshop with a failing art students eye like Van Burnham did in Supercade. Any factual information the author provided, beyond his own hackneyed description of gameplay, could easily be found in Mame's history.dat file. First Quarter by Kent is still a benchmark for these types of retrospect even though that book didn't necessarily concentrate solely on the arcade market. For those interested in retrogaming who may not already know: Mame32, the Win32 GUI version of Mame, at version .76 [4499 arcade games supported] seeks to preserve these games through emulation, it also facilitates the creation and collection of marquees, screen shots, control panels, cabinets, flyers, and historical information about designers, stories, etc. in one place. The program itself, as a living documentation project, far exceeds written efforts like this. Just google on Mame32 to find it.
Rating:
Summary: Arcade Glory & Nostalgia: Revisited
Review: Mr. Sellers has compiled what is essentially a time capsule packed with vivid recollections of adolescent indulgence laced with ribald wit. Clearly an homage, Arcade Fever is transcendant. The feel of thick carpet, black light, Sbarro's pizza and pocketfulls of quarters fills the synapses while the pages turn. Replete with nostalgia, this title is perfect for anyone who skipped class to shoot B&W rocks or navigate a corpulent carpenter upward a steely skeletal edifice. The only drawback-- the realisation that scenes from Flynn's Arcade in Tron have ceased to exist. The games are harder to enjoy now-- victims of changing tastes and a market that dried up seemingly overnight. There are no downers though, and as a love letter (which this text obviously is) it didn't end badly at all. Now excuse me while i scrounge a quarter or two and find the nearby Asteroids machine at my local movie theatre...
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