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Summary: The Book aging game nuts have waited for!
Review: ....
This book may seem a little pricey, but it's worth it. It covers an incredible amount of information (albeit not in the depth some might want)-But the thing that allows it to rise above in my opinion is the high quality, HUGE range of photographs, some very rare. As games are a visual medium, this is important to me. Home games or arcade games, both are covered well, and the beautiful layout will have you returning to this book again and again.
The 'Ultimate Guide to video games' (Also available) goes into greater details, but has very few photos-I prefer this, but I would recommend both to any game fan, as both are excellent, and together they make a fantastic companion set.
Rating:
Summary: comprehensive and beautifully laid out
Review: For anyone that has played games in the last 30 years, this book is sure to bring back memories. Nostalgia and reminiscing will abound when you see old screenshots, game covers, and other game memorabilia reproduced in full-color. It also reads well, with game company histories and the rise and fall of a variety of game systems. Everything from pinball and Pong to Tomb Raider and Unreal is covered. This is one of those books that you'll pick up to flip through, and then find yourself an hour late for wherever you had to get to.
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Summary: A coffee table book for the geek set...
Review: Forget architectural digest or Martha what's her name's books if you are a computer gaming addict, this is the book for your coffee (Jolt Cola) table. "High Score" is a broad and complete history of computer games from arcades, consoles and computer games on multiple platforms. From the completeness, great pains have been taken to cover all aspects of computer game development from enabling technologies to new ideas of game play. There are enough trivia tidbits that even the most hard core gamer will find something new. The only caveat is that depth is sacrificed for breadth, making it more of a book for browsing than reading. The book is also valuable in that it reveals that fun comes in many forms and is sure to inspire game developers beyond the derivative ideas that pose as game play innovation.
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Summary: Trip Back In Time For Video Game History Buffs
Review: Hi all, This book is a terrific look at the games past and present that have shaped the video game industry as it is today! As the title suggests, much of the book is in picture form with many shots of games (video, arcare, computer) and other material of years past. As much as I love the book, the reason I give it 4 stars is the written descriptions that accompany the book. I personally love history and wish that more written material could have been included. What is presented is adequate but I was left wanting for MORE background info! As it is, the book is still a must buy for any video game fan or history buff. One also might want to check out "The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World" as well.
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Summary: Perfect for the Video Game History Buff
Review: I had seen this book while browsing around on Amazon but based on the description, it did not interest me. However, after stumbling upon the book in a bookstore and having a chance to browse through it, it became almost a MUST BUY. The pictures in the book are outstanding and are pretty much worth the price of the book. Classic game screenshots, boxes, and other historial items from the late 70's until the dawn of the current era of videogames (PS2, etc) are displayed. The book only gets 4 stars from me because while the book title does say "The Illustrated History of Video Games", the brief written descriptions accompanying the pictures left me wanting for more (I am a slight history buff) However, the book is still a great gift for anyone who perhaps played the games or is a interested in the history of video games.
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Summary: An absolute treasure!
Review: I received this book from a dear friend and was absolutely overwhelmed by how beautifully well laid out it was. The history of electronic games is well documented and shows how far we have come from the days of "Pong!". For those of you into computer games or arcade games, this is a definite "history" book about our hobby. My personal odyssey began with the Atari 2600 game system, followed by the Atari PC, Apple Macintosh and finally the IBM PC. As I read through the book I was taken back to how fun the games were back then. Memories of playing games from new game companies back then such as Broderbund, Lucasarts and now defunct Origin came rushing back. The endless hours that I spent playing "M.U.L.E." and "Rescue on Fractalus" brought a smile to my face as I saw each game talked about in the book. Reading about the pioneers such as Lord British and his star rising in the gaming scene was quite informative and entertaining. If you grew up playing games on an Amiga or Commodore 64 or an Atari 2600 you will want to get this book to show your kids what it was like before 3D graphics and virtual reality! I will treasure this book for as long as I live!
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Summary: A Trip Back To Memory Lane
Review: Remember when games were made by handful of coders and they're names were featured prominently on the box? High Score is great book that provides a history of electronic gaming from it's beginnings with spacewar all the way up to recent titles such as Unreal. The book is divided by decades and is further subdivided by game companies. I wouldn't really call it a "coffee table book" because it's definitely a book you can sit down and read just for the history. The pictures are amazing, each company has pictures of developers, screenshots, and boxshots. The book tends to focus on computer games more than console, and doesn't talk much about more modern arcade games. IMHO, I think the book focused on the right points, there is no way you could have unabridged illustrated history without ending up with a 1000 page monstrosity. If you've played games for a long time like me, this book will bring back tons of memories. Younger gamers would probably like it for the history, but older gamers and even people who just work in the industry will appreciate this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for the coffee table, not for the true game fan
Review: The Bottom Line: This is a nice coffee table book to spark some discussion, but true gaming fans and players will be dissapointed with this version of gaming history. My own, personal dissatisfaction with this book comes from the lack of coverage of the 2D fighter genre, which was kicked off in the early 1990's with Street Fighter 2. This one game single-handedly revitalized and recreated the arcade market, which had been strugling since around 1983. It forever shifted some primary design philosophies, most importantly, from competing against a computer AI to competing against human opponents (which is the main draw to just about every online game in existence today). In a sense, it was a retro-evolution back to games like Pong and what made those games so much fun. To put it another way, games were designed with the idea that humans would be competing against each other as a primary design element. Therefore, issues such as balance, cheating, and competition took on new meanings. These factors had to be developed within the framework of highly complex games, not simple games like Pong. The impact of this game cannot be overstated, but the authors devote a whopping 1-page to this landmark game and say little about the genre (and the hundreds of games) that came after and are still being made today. That's simply inexcusable. Street Fighter, alone, has about 30 sequels in various incarnations. The vast majority of 1990's section is devoted to PC gaming and profiles of PC Gaming companies (because the PC finally began to become a powerful enough machine that it could deliver graphics and sound that had broad market appeal). Very little is ever said about the shifting gaming cultural landscape that occured between cosoles, home computers, and Arcades but that sort of thing, to a true gamer, is as important as the demise of Saturday morning cartoons when cable got big. In short, with the exception of the early history section, this book reads more like a catalog of games organized by release date and accompanied with a screen or box shot. It fails to actually comment intelligently on the subject itself.
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Summary: 320 Page CGW Special Feature
Review: This book is more like a huge 320 page Computer Gaming World special feature (of which co-author Johnny Wilson was editor for many years) than a comprehensive history of "Electronic Games" (as well, except for a microscopic thanks in the first couple pages of the book along with 100's of others, Arnie Katz, Bill Kunkel And Joyce Worley get absolutely no credit for their pioneering game journalism or for coining the phrase this book is built upon, but I digress). What we have is a nicely illustrated grazing of a history that was covered much better in Steven L. Kent's "The First Quarter". Still, the illustrations, images, and interviews contained within are quite compelling, and prove to make this book a good purchase, even if it does have holes the size of Montana in its main focus coverage, (the so-called Golden Age of games in the 80's), not to mention the appallingly thin coverage of anything released past 1991. What it does, it does do well. It covers the major bases and players in 20/20 hindsight that had the biggest impact on computer games and to a much lesser extent, video games. I would have liked to see a bit more information on the Tramiel era of Atari, Europe, The Atari ST/TT/Falcon, Amiga, Spectrum, MSX as well of some pioneering game companies/personalities like Synapse, Big Five, FTL, Starpath, Datamost, Gamestar, First Star, APX, Roklan, Llamasoft/Jeff Minter, Chris Sawyer, and Spinnaker to name a few, but that is more of wishlist for what I'd like to see in volume II than a complaint. I'd suggest that for the next volume (and lets hope there is one), the authors/editors add a few more people to their team that have intimate knowledge of different parts of gaming than the tunnel-vision that passed through the editorial halls of CGW for the past decade or so. They have the beginnings of something great, but it still needs some work to get there.
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Summary: Memories, So Many Memories!
Review: This book will take you back. I flicked through this book and the memories kept flooding back. I had completely forgotten about a lot of these games until seeing their pictures in this book. I remember being a little kid in the 80's and playing Paperboy, Pac Man, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, Frogger, Leisure Suit Larry, California Games, Railroad Tycoon, Maniac Mansion, Wings and It Came from the Desert. I had a Commodore Amiga 500. Other kids had Commodore 64's or the Atari and all those games are in this book too This book has a lot of the games from the 80's and the 90's. I wasn't still playing games in the 90's but I recognise a lot of the titles. Not every single game is in here but there are a lot and the reminiscing you will do is worth the price of this book alone. This book is an excellent conversation starter as well. The companies that made the games and the game machines are in here in detail as well as well as the history of games over the two decades. There is a lot of information in this book. You have to read it if you played these games in the past.
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