Jeff Ryan

Great information concerning Nintendo, its place in the gaming world, and the intricacies surrounding their biggest decisions up through the Wii U. However, although the author mentioned extensive editing in his acknowledgements, the work seems very choppy from chapter to chapter and lacks an overarching narrative. It's essentially a gathering of Nintendo facts and anecdotes in a linear timeline, with enough Super Mario info included in each chapter to justify the title. Unfortunately, it's also marred by the author's logical inconsistencies and contradictions that are sprinkled throughout.

Recommended for those interested in Nintendo, games, or the gaming industry.… (mere)

This is the story of how a small Japanese company selling trading cards became one of the largest video game companies in the world; and it's quite a bumpy ride. It starts in the early 80s when Mino Arakawa realises he's standing there with two thousand arcade games he doesn't seem to be able to sell. Luckily, he's saved when one of the company's artists, Shigeru Miyamoto, comes up with a game including an angry gorilla and a small jumping plumber. It is a game that makes more than 180 million dollars in its first year, but most importantly, is the first step into making Nintendo a household name that soon becomes a big part of modern culture.

Despite coming from a household where Sony and its Playstation is favoured over all over gaming consoles, Nintendo has always been with me in one way or another. Mostly in the shape of Pokémon but also Super Mario; it's one of those games I can remember playing as a young child on my beloved Gameboy Advance (though, I'll admit that Donkey Kong came first for me). This definitely lead to the book being a portkey to nostalgia but most importantly, I learned a lot of not only Nintendo but also gaming history in general.

The arcade days, and well, pretty much anything before the Playstation were before my time. Even so, I don't really remember playing on the Playstation much as I had my Gameboy and Playstation 2 came around by the time I was advancing into games made for big kids. That being said, I'm not completely oblivious to gaming history; my father has been a fan since the arcade games were popular, and he's definitely made sure I know the roots of video games. Not just by telling me about it but also by letting me play older games. But especially as he was quite young at the time and also a kid in Sweden, not the US or Japan, a lot of the early history of gaming was way beyond me for a long time. I mean, I understood it. But there was a lot I didn't know.

This book, though, is basically the best history book I've read. Which is quite amusing considering it's ”only” about Nintendo and the gaming culture. But it's descriptive in such a way that I finally understand some of the technology and designs that I was only vaguely understanding of before. It does a great job of painting a really lovely picture for as simple as explaining how Mario came to be designed. The language isn't very formal or insensitive; the author truly makes a story out of it all. It's a little bit like listening to your grandfather telling a story about his childhood rather than reading a textbook; which in my opinion is how reading history books should be more often.… (mere)

Where to begin? Most of the time spent reading this book, I was thinking about what I wanted to say about this disappointing, misrepresented (more about that) book. While certainly not the worst book I've ever read (I'm looking at you "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" by Eric Idle), I was getting more and more angry the closer I got to the end of the book, because it was getting progressively worse.
First of all, the sub-title; "How Ub Iwerks Became Forgotten, and Walt Disney Became Uncle Walt", is a complete falsehood. When I saw this at the local library, I was intrigued by the relationship between Ub and Walt. I've read a few biographies of Walt Disney when I was a kid, but knew next to nothing about Ub and what happened between him and Walt. Well, I still know next to nothing about Ub. Walt was a tough guy to work for, not really a surprise, but what drove him and Ub (who were really close friends and started Disney Productions together) apart? Well, you're not going to learn anything from reading this book.
The bulk of this book is descriptions and critiques of each individual Mickey Mouse cartoon, from Plane Crazy and to the Sorcerers Apprentice (and really, does anybody who would pick up this book need a scene by scene description of the Sorcerers Apprentice that runs on for 3 pages?). Ub is lucky if he receives more than half a paragraph per chapter.
I read the first few pages before I checked it out of the library, it seemed a bit light and breezy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it quickly turned it a mere bit of fluff the further I got in to it. The author hops around from seemingly unrelated topics from paragraph to paragraph; and fluff is a appropriate term, this isn't a book, it shouldn't be a book, maybe a long article for Esquire; there is really only enough material for a few pages of magazine here, not 317 pages of a hardbound book.
The author bio on the dust jacket "...swears this book was not undertaken to write off family vacations to Orlando", I'm not so sure about that. Speaking of that, I should have been more concerned about the author photo, the bight blue suit and giant Mickey gloves should have given me a clue of what I was getting myself in for.… (mere)