Tag: Book Reviews
Book Review An Unendorsed Anthology Of Club Nintendo - A Terrific Tribute Tome
Join the club
The My Nintendo loyalty program is pretty good, right? If you head on over to the rewards section of the service right now, you’ll find a host of interesting goodies to claim should you possess the required number of coins. These include a Nintendo Switch Online 2025 Calendar, a set of
Dragon page
As the Western world waits for a localisation announcement, Zelda fans in Japan have been poring through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Master Works, the latest tome dedicated to 2023’s Nintendo Switch masterpiece. Part art book, part development deep dive, part history lesson, Master Works delivers the final word on Tears...
Book Review Perfect Organism - A Must-Read For Fans Of Alien: Isolation
Fit for an Alien Queen
Toward the beginning of Perfect Organism: An Alien: Isolation Companion, author Andy Kelly asks a question that, to an outsider, might seem particularly pertinent: why write an entire book about one game? However, to those who have ever held a deep passion for a piece of pop culture, whether it be a film, a book, or a game,...
Book Review Disrupting The Game: From The Bronx To The Top Of Nintendo - Reggie Fils-Aimé
Intriguing insights blended with business can-do tropes
Reggie Fils-Aimé is an iconic figurehead of 21st Century Nintendo, arriving in the public eye at a pivotal moment of the company's history as it underwent a Satoru Iwata-led revolution. After the GameCube's challenging generation in the face of new competition from Microsoft's Xbox and the...
Book Review Ask Iwata: Words Of Wisdom From Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's Legendary CEO
A wonderful insight into Iwata-san, and Nintendo itself
This book review was originally published on 17th April, and we've republished it on 11th July 2021, marking six years since Satoru Iwata passed away. It's been said often that Satoru Iwata wasn't just a CEO of a hugely successful company, he was far more. That sentiment is frequently...
Book Review Flicking Through The Vibrant World Of Yooka-Laylee And The Kracklestone
Over a hundred pagies long
The spiritual successor to the legendary bear and bird besties, Yooka-Laylee, nearly shook the earth when they were revealed through a Kickstarter project by Playtonic Games, the brand new studio made up of ex-Rare developers. Since the original reveal back in 2015, the team has managed to put out not just one, but two...
Book Review Neo Geo: A Visual History
The future is now
We'll spare you the traditional spiel about how the Neo Geo was the pinnacle of gaming back in the '90s – if you own a Switch then chances are you're already intimately familiar with the amazing library of this beast, thanks to the fact that Japanese firm Hamster has been pumping out a stream of Neo Geo titles on the Switch eShop...
Book Review 101 Video Games to Play Before You Grow Up
However long you take to grow up
For gamers of a certain age, it's easy to forget that while we talk about the Console Wars, SEGA vs Nintendo, or reminisce about short naps while early CD games loaded, younger gamers may have no idea what we're talking about. There are also some franchises that have sketchy or limited recent histories, so therefore...
Book Review The Unofficial NES/Famicom: A Visual Compendium
Could this be the perfect coffee table book?
We've seen an explosion in books celebrating retro video game history lately. One of the most prolific publishers is UK-based Bitmap Books, which is responsible for many of our favourites - including the excellent Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection. Their catchily titled 'Visual Compendium' series has...
Book Review Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: The Guide To Shoot-Em-Ups Volume 1
Bullet point
The humble 2D shooter may have fallen out of favour with the mainstream these days, but it's certainly one of the most important genres in the world of video gaming. Were it not for Space Invaders – the shooter that arguably birthed a genre – then our industry may well have evolved in an entirely different fashion. During the '80s...
A minimalist trip down memory lane
We've seen lots of attractive coffee table art books aimed at retro gaming fans in recent times, which is no bad thing. Joining the ranks is a publication simply titled 8-Bit Art Book - by Ear Books - which pays homage to the visual quality of classic games spanning from 1975 to the early '90s. The author Stephan...
Book Review Super Mario Adventures
A wonderfully bizarre tour of the Mushroom Kingdom
He's undoubtedly one of the most recognisable faces ever to grace the box art of a video game, but aside from his blue-collar occupation and a dislike for turtles, fans in the early '90s didn't know a whole lot about Super Mario himself. Beyond the pixels onscreen and information found buried within...
Book Review Nintendo 64 Anthology
A fitting tribute to a beloved console
So much for the internet destroying printed media. In the past few years we've seen a wealth of amazing video game-related books, including Sega Mega Drive: The Collected Works, Britsoft and – still to come – the
Book Review Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents Data East Arcade Classics
Are you a bad enough dude to read this book?
Alongside the likes of Capcom, Konami and Namco, Data East was one of the quintessential software makers of the '80s arcade scene, but unlike those other firms it perhaps didn't have the pulling power to ensure long-term success. The company has long since been dissolved and its properties sold to the...
Book Review The Unofficial Guide To Konami Shooters
A timely reminder that Konami was really good at making games, once
Konami may be retreating from the production of video games these days but not so long ago the company was seen as one of the leading lights in the industry, challenging the likes of Capcom, Sega and Nintendo when it came to creating compelling, must-have experiences. This...
Gallery Cover To Cover With Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection
Art attack
Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection launches this month, but we've been lucky enough to have the chance to thumb through an advance copy ahead of its official release. Published by Bitmap Books and created by fanatical Super Famicom fan Stu Brett, this 276 page tome highlights some of the best cover artwork of the 16-bit years.
Book Review Artcade: The Book Of Classic Arcade Game Artwork
Got any spare change?
It's hard to believe it now, but there was a time when the evolution of the video game industry happened not in the home, but at locations like bowling alleys, cinemas, bars and - if you're from the UK - humble fish and chip shops. While home consoles have been a massive part of gaming for decades, they traditionally lagged...
Book Review The 200 Best Video Games Of All Time
Hardcore Gaming 101 does it again
People love putting things in lists - it's human nature. Since the dawn of the internet however, such lists have taken on a life of their own; starved of time, short on attention and faced with a seemingly unlimited amount of free content, the average web user wants information delivered in the shortest time...
An evocative and surprising look at Nintendo's uncharted history
It's common knowledge that Nintendo has been around for over a hundred years, and that the company started out producing playing cards many decades before finding fame as a purveyor of interactive entertainment. However, the years in between are often overlooked by even the staunchest...
Book Review The Unofficial Game & Watch Collector's Guide
LCD legacy
Game & Watch was Nintendo's first foray into the world of portable electronic gaming. These small, pocket-sized devices used LCD screens to create crude but surprisingly playable games, perfect for passing the time on the way to and from work (in fact, creator Gunpei Yokoi even stated that he was inspired to create the range after...
Book Review 33 1/3 - Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack
Going deep into the classics
The themes of Super Mario Bros. are such a prominent part of our culture that they're easily celebrated, but perhaps not so easy to truly appreciate. The tracks - especially the original Overworld/Ground Theme - pop up in so many places and are so readily playable in our heads that we can treat them as simpler and less...
Book Review Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Castlevania
A bloody good read
Castlevania is one of those franchises which will always be inexorably linked with Nintendo. The series became a household name thanks to its well-received NES outings, and in the days of the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS it strengthened this connection with six excellent "Metroidvania" releases. Although its future may well...
Book Review Boss Fight Books - Super Mario Bros. 2
Subcon-text
For how unique it is compared to other games in the Mario line, it’s amazing how easily Super Mario Bros. 2 is taken at face value or glossed over entirely. Many fans are happy to share the fact that the game is actually a reskin of Japanese title Doki Doki Panic after the original Super Mario Bros. sequel was deemed too difficult and...
Book Review Console Wars - Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation
An insightful history with a bit too much Blast Processing
It's crystal clear from the first page of Blake J. Harris' Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation that the book is destined for the big screen. With not one, but two movies based on Console Wars already in production before it even hit bookstore shelves– a...
Book Review Boss Fight Books - Chrono Trigger
There's more than one way to revisit the past
It's difficult to write about video games. Believe us, we know. The medium is, strictly speaking, a compound one. Whereas writing about works of art in most media entails a relatively straightforward discussion of how well or poorly the work in question used the tools available to that medium, writing...
Book Review The Legend Of Zelda: Hyrule Historia
Consulting the legendary tome
It’s amazing to think that a game which started out as a very basic action RPG on the NES has morphed into one of gaming’s most enduring and famous properties, sparking everything from emotional debate to hushed reverence whenever its name is uttered. The Legend of Zelda series - apparently inspired by creator...
Book Review Sega Arcade Classics Volume 1
To be this good takes ages
Those of you that like retro gaming will no doubt have already heard of the site Hardcore Gaming 101. Run by a team of super-knowledgeable and keen gaming enthusiasts, HG101 is bursting with content relating to vintage games and franchises. The site was founded by Kurt Kalata, who is the driving force behind Sega Arcade...
Book Review The History of Nintendo Volume 1
Let's-a go
You might consider yourself a Nintendo expert, with innumerable facts and figures at your disposal, but even the most knowledgeable follower of the Kyoto company will find hitherto unknown realms of information in The History of Nintendo: Volume 1 — 1889 - 1980: From playing-cards to Game & Watch. The book made waves last year in...
Book Review Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry
Game over man
You won’t find an abundance of book reviews here on Nintendo Life – we’re aimed squarely at providing you the best content from the world of interactive entertainment, after all – but anyone who considers themselves to be a fan of The Big N (or video gaming in general) should read David’s Sheff’s Game Over (or Game Over:...
