Review: Arcade Mania!
After spending the past few years following author Brian Ashcraft via his daily posts on respected gaming site Kotaku, I was more than interested in picking up Arcade Mania, his first published book covering arcade game centers in Japan.
Arcade Mania starts off with an excellent casual, intelligent introduction from the author that sets the tone for the rest of the book. It soon becomes fairly obvious that Brian has a great love of his subject matter (games) regardless of genre and design.
As you are led through the chapters from the front of the Arcade ‘Mania’ with ‘UFO catchers’ through to the ‘Rhythm Section’ and onto the ‘Shmups’ and ‘Sticker Machines’, Brian keeps your interest firmly between the pages with his unique style of writing which feels more conversational than formal. It’s more telling, I think, when an author writes as if speaking from one fan to another rather than coming off as pretentious and overbearing. In this case, this thankfully isn’t an issue – in fact, think of this as the ideal pocket guide to have as you walk around the Game Centers of Tokyo and Osaka. While it really covers the arcades on a broad basis, he does mention some specific ones such as Taito Hey, and from that he pieces together the elements of an arcade from his travels for the sake of ‘research’ – which is a cool way of saying playing a few rounds. Brian was also able to interview some of the key arcade players who are both currently on the scene or played competitively for a protracted period of time. They also have allowed the author to provide informative player profiles which while in depth, are not in any way invasive and add color to the world of Arcade Mania.
The visual presentation of the book is a joy to behold, with Jean Snow and Brian Ashcraft’s collaborative design giving the book a life of its own. It feels what some would call ‘retro’ but has a high level of polish and gloss to it which I guess makes it ‘Bashcraft Retro HD’.
It just all feels like a complete package!
I’m giving this book 4/5 based purely on the fact that this is ‘”Bashcraft’s” first book, and I’d like to set the bar to a certain height that Brian can definitely exceed next time. This is not to say the book is not great, though. It really is everything a book should be – engaging and informative, funny and intelligent and most of all, essential!
If you want to read this awesome book, you can pick up a copy of Arcade Mania from the following vendors:
