zeppelin03 | 314 Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Hi all. The book for November is Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Rothchild | 9,506 Editorials Team · Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 Started it last night I didn't realize it was focused specifically on Mario, thinking it was instead a general Nintendo history Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Rothchild | 9,506 Editorials Team · Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Definitely not as well-written as Console Wars or Masters of Doom. Hell, probably barely above my own writing. But super entertaining anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Link | 2,707 Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Just ordered a copy. It “should arrive by Nov 18”. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeppelin03 | 314 Posted November 5, 2019 Author Share Posted November 5, 2019 I ordered a Kindle copy last night. Hoping to put a nice dent in Saturday with a day of travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
behemos | 757 Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Yeah, got my copy. I agree with Reed. Has a very simplistic writing style. But good so far nonetheless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Rothchild | 9,506 Editorials Team · Posted November 8, 2019 Share Posted November 8, 2019 80 pages in. Already reached SMB so I'll be curious to see just how much time this covers. The dude really likes his esoteric metaphors and similes and whatnot too. Like comparing SMB world 1-1 to Montana (because we're the "Big Sky" state), or drawing a parallel between SMB and 30 Rock and Arrested Development (I still don't get that one) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeppelin03 | 314 Posted November 10, 2019 Author Share Posted November 10, 2019 I was on a 13 hour flight and somehow managed to read nothing. Going to try and squeeze in a few pages a day during my trip so I can at least get something knocked out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Rothchild | 9,506 Editorials Team · Posted November 10, 2019 Share Posted November 10, 2019 Hah, the book makes a Frank Stallone joke. This after I made my own Frank Stallone joke in my soon to appear Judge Dredd review. Just going on the record that I did not steal it from this book: it was already written. Should finish it up today or tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeppelin03 | 314 Posted November 10, 2019 Author Share Posted November 10, 2019 So I read the intro on the train yesterday. I can see what people are saying about the righting style. Reminds me of the times I didn't write an essay in school and had to try more creative writing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Rothchild | 9,506 Editorials Team · Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 Just finished it. It was alright. Not in the same league as Console Wars or Masters of Doom (sorry I keep mentioning them, but those are the two best gaming books I've read). Both of those hit me in the feels with 90s nostalgia. SM never threatened to do that. It's less personal, bigger in scope, and more generalized. It's also riddled with errors. Tony Hawk is famous for doing a 720? Every castle in Super Mario Brothers has a princess in it? The PlayStation beat the N64 because it allowed easy piracy? Huh? Still, entertaining read (I burned through it), and I'm sure it will be fascinating stuff to more casual games, or neophytes. There ain't gonna much of anything new for the hardcore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jicsan | 585 Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 I had this on audible, and listened to it a long while back but forgot most of it. I'm about half way through again already. It's no Console Wars for sure. I hear you on the metaphors and similes, there were some I couldn't even follow because I wasn't familiar with the person he was referencing. The part where it talks about how Charles Martinet was hired to voice Mario on a machine called the MIRT (Mario In Real Time), I realized that I had encountered that before. It was sometime In the early 2000's at the GameStop managers conference. In Nintendo's vendor training room they had this screen with an animated Mario head (sometimes it swapped to Wario), Charles Martinet was on a mic somewhere behind the curtain and was voicing Mario joking around with everyone. It was very cool. Later on at the expo I got and autographed pic from him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Link | 2,707 Posted November 13, 2019 Share Posted November 13, 2019 (edited) Got my copy today. I’m on chapter 3. Err, 1-3. So far, so good. Too soon for a review yet, obviously. Although I can already tell it will basically be in line with what has already been said. Edited November 13, 2019 by Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
behemos | 757 Posted November 14, 2019 Share Posted November 14, 2019 Just finished the book. It was a fast, easy read. I have to say, though, the editor needs to be fired. The book was rife with spelling and grammatical errors. I couldn't even keep up with how many variations there were on Reggie Fils-Aimé's name. On top of that there were several fact-checking errors. I also didn't care for Ryan's smug, smartest-guy-in-the-room tone. The similes and metaphors were laughable at times. And the text is flooded with words that do little else than attempt to prove how smart the author is. Brobdingnagian? I mean c'mon. That said, it was a fun read at times. I picked up a few things I didn't know, especially about specific games. I did like the passages that explored the psychological side of things (though I assume some/a lot of it is the author's personal take). Overall, though, there wasn't a ton of new info for even casual Nintendo fans. @Reed RothchilddRothchildRothchilddRot (I don't know why his name is formatted that way; I can't delete it on mobile) hit the nail on the head that the book was general in scope. There's just too little on too much. It was funny, too. Almost all of Ryan's predictions were completely off-base in terms of Nintendo's future (the book was written in 2011/12). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Link | 2,707 Posted November 19, 2019 Share Posted November 19, 2019 I finished the book and I’m ready to join the dogpile, lol. Ryan contradicts himself and reads too much into things. He miscontrues obvious details, glosses over bits that need more, and seems to make up others completely. There are no citations or quotations despite including a bibliography (wait... there is one quote. Page 163.) In the acknowledgment section, he mentions his editor, but more prominently describes the editing efforts of his family members. None of them caught some fairly glaring mistakes, or stopped him from slipping into bizarre Japanese caricature a couple of times. And somebody needs to take away his damn thesaurus. My sole issue with David Sheff’s book is that Sheff doesn’t seem to really understand video games himself. Which is fine, because he still adequately explained things without confusing the timeline, unlike this book which does so many times. Ryan, a “lifelong gamer” who “has covered four console launches” seems to share Sheff’s fundamental misunderstanding of the particulars of what he writes about, despite being “the video games editor for Katrillion, a popular Web site.” Has anybody here ever heard of Katrillion, because I have not. I could provide specific examples of my criticisms, but I think this review is long enough without them. I noted each issue numerous times and used that to formulate the above. Overall a strange book that doesn’t seem right for people who already know much of this info, nor people who don’t. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-type | 2,476 Posted November 19, 2019 Share Posted November 19, 2019 I read this book a few years ago. Its not as fresh in my head to discuss it in detail, but I do remember it was enjoyable, but not the best. (I also preferred Console Wars) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaytToTheParty | 22 Posted May 22, 2020 Share Posted May 22, 2020 Are we still doing monthly books? I've just joined and I'm afraid this club looks dead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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