As the title says, it is a selective history, and most of the fun of reading it is, I expect, from the nostalgia value of being reminded of old, terrible games you used to play during the 80s and 90s. (It barely touches on anything more recent that the arrival of the Sony Playstation, which is a real shame.) Unfortunately for me there wasn't a single game in this book that I had played, and I definitely remember playing a LOT of terrible games during my own formative years as the owner of an Atari ST, then a Sega Mega Drive, before switching to the Sony Playstation and PC games, but most of the book covers other consoles. Since these are descriptions of bad games, there's not even any inclination to seek them out now and play them for myself. The depiction of some of the more bizarre games was amusing, but I think to truly enjoy this read, you would need to have progressed through the ownership of the same games consoles as the author to get that same pleasant nostalgia.

A delightful and informative history of "bad" video games. This books is a joyful read that also teaches creators of all kinds useful lessons.

Sorry for late reply:


This was a great book to look at the worst video games that don't get enough attention. The popularity of gaming becoming a household activity makes this quite interesting and informative to find new things that don't get discussed mainstream.

Honestly, this book is a joy to read. Written by someone who clearly adores the medium and all its idiosyncrasies, I had a great time reading this. Informative, engaging, and written with love; what more could you ask for?

Light-hearted look at the old home console games of our childhoods, whose concepts, difficulty levels, collision detection or just sheer likeability were broken. Kudos for being fully illustrated with all the relevant screen-grabs, and well done for actually discussing what you have to do to play the games in ways that do convince the reader you've been playing them recently (as opposed to just thinking up more and more hyperbolic complaint noises), but I did think this could have been more arch, more catty, more Ashens. Instead the cutting edge seems to come from the author having programming and game-making experience, by the sound of it, so three and a half asteroids for this one.

A fantastic book forthe Gamer in your life, or some nostalgia even if you’re not a big gamer but grew up with these video games. This book is full of history, nostalgia, it’s a fantastic trip down memory lane

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy in return for an honest opinion

This trip down video-game memory by Michael Greenhut will be released on February 28, 2023. Pen and Sword provided an early galley for review.

As someone whose first home game system was the Atari 2600 and first computer was a Commodore-64, this book was like a reunion with some old forgotten acquaintances. Quite a few of the games discussed in this volume come from those early days of gaming - when we had to use our imaginations to truly appreciate the primitive graphics on the screens.

I remember saving a lot of money to purchase Pac-Man 2600 and, as Greenhut outlines, being mildly disappointed by the graphics. It was not exactly like the beloved arcade game that was hitting the world with fever at the time. Luckily the later Ms. Pac-Man for the same console helped scratch that particular itch.

A number of the games listed here were a bit unfamiliar to me; I was not an NES/SNES player and leaned more towards the Sega Genesis platform. Still, it was interesting to read about the parameters and limitations game designers had to work in, especially when porting some arcade classics to the home platforms. Dragon's Lair and Space Ace definitely suffered from that, sadly.

This book is a quick read (just over 200 pages with a lot of screen-shot images in full color to support the text); however, it will definitely give old-school gamers a warm feeling of nostalgia.

Gamers will get a kick out of this book.
An interesting and entertaining read.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

I'm So Lucky to be Playing some Great Video Games Because The Games in this Book are So Bad, They would Make Dominic Diamond Blush.
(Thanks to Net Galley for this Book).