Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by tripleeyejosh
Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of by Stuart Ashen
3.0
I have a hard time with this one. On one hand, it's great learning about all these terrible games I have indeed never heard of before. Each entry is written in an entertaining way, giving facts about these games's release, how they were made, how they play, and how reviewers looked at them at the time (if the even did). But there are two big problems that really hamper this book.
While it's not a boring read by any stretch, it's also not funny. I find Stuart Ashen hit or miss in his videos - he often finds interesting objects to talk about, and when he has something good, you can see it inspires him. But whenever he's not inspired, it shows. He'll often repeat jokes or just shout at something like so many angry boys on the internet shouting about video games. That's pretty much the case with this book as well, it's just not funny. Throughout reading the entire thing, I didn't so much as chuckle. None of the attempted humor was cringe-worthy, mind, it just fell flat.
The bigger problem is that there's no reason for this to be a book, in fact, it only barely works as a book at all. Terrible Old Games You Probably Never Heard Of began as a series of videos, and that medium works so much better for this kind of thing - both because Ashen is more used to it and does it more naturally, and because you can actually see the games he's talking about in action, and don't have to settle for a couple of screenshots and brief descriptions.
This book would have worked much better if it detailed more of Ashen's personal stories with these games. Maybe spending more time talking about his childhood with these, or his more recent attempts at playing them, giving some amusing anecdotes about how frustrated he got or maybe how he actually kind of enjoyed some of these games. Instead, he goes for more of a clinical autopsy, and while that works fine, again, I'm not sure that was the best route to take.
Still, there are some amusing write-ups, some interesting interviews and guest-written entries that are better written. This is one of the most difficult books to review, because while good, you can tell it had the potential to be great, it just doesn't quite get there.
While it's not a boring read by any stretch, it's also not funny. I find Stuart Ashen hit or miss in his videos - he often finds interesting objects to talk about, and when he has something good, you can see it inspires him. But whenever he's not inspired, it shows. He'll often repeat jokes or just shout at something like so many angry boys on the internet shouting about video games. That's pretty much the case with this book as well, it's just not funny. Throughout reading the entire thing, I didn't so much as chuckle. None of the attempted humor was cringe-worthy, mind, it just fell flat.
The bigger problem is that there's no reason for this to be a book, in fact, it only barely works as a book at all. Terrible Old Games You Probably Never Heard Of began as a series of videos, and that medium works so much better for this kind of thing - both because Ashen is more used to it and does it more naturally, and because you can actually see the games he's talking about in action, and don't have to settle for a couple of screenshots and brief descriptions.
This book would have worked much better if it detailed more of Ashen's personal stories with these games. Maybe spending more time talking about his childhood with these, or his more recent attempts at playing them, giving some amusing anecdotes about how frustrated he got or maybe how he actually kind of enjoyed some of these games. Instead, he goes for more of a clinical autopsy, and while that works fine, again, I'm not sure that was the best route to take.
Still, there are some amusing write-ups, some interesting interviews and guest-written entries that are better written. This is one of the most difficult books to review, because while good, you can tell it had the potential to be great, it just doesn't quite get there.