The graphics in the book are so wonderfully vibrant and colourful! It’s all very nostalgic, taking readers back to their childhoodsm, including the NES computer where the consoles every child wanted in the 1980’s!

The hardback book contains 120 pages, with 150 colour illustrations and really is a delightful read and trip down memory lane that is easy to dip in and out of. Dedicated gaming fans will no doubt want to immerse themselves fully into the book though!

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Sim's Life

Excellent history of video games, with superb historical facts and images, together with how the video game industry is shaping up for the future while it takes advantage of the massive improvements in technology, graphics etc.

Books Monthly

Despite being relatively short, this is a fantastically detailed account of the history of electronic gaming. A fun, informative read.

NetGalley, Jeff Fox

This is the first time reviewing a book where I have lived through the subject the book is going on about. I remember my Dad getting a family computer in the early 80’s, and I think the first game was one called Android Attack and you loaded the game through a cassette player. The book certainly brought back lots of memories and it was great to see the old characters, and find out about the history of them. This was a really good book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

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UK Historian

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

First things first, wow. This book was packed with so much information about the history behind video games. I loved playing video games as a child. Coming home from school and playing Donkey Kong Country is so vivid in my mind, it feels like yesterday. But learning how far video games have come and what some of the original video games looked like, it's almost unbelievable to think we have the games that we have now.

I admit that I had never researched video game history. I honestly thought video games first popped up in the 80's and went from there. But knowing that video games are from way before that really blew my mind. This book makes me wonder what original video game pioneers would think of how far gaming has come now. We can essentially have video games in our pocket, and to think they were at one point huge machines is so amazing.

I recommend this book to gamers, game designers, game developers, or anyone who works in the gaming industry. Even history buffs would enjoy this book.

NetGalley, Rayna Buckley

This is an insightful non fiction on the history of video games, and it does what the title says- gives you the history. As a big gamer from a young age, i keep up with the newest releases and spend hours playing them, but to learn the history behind the industry, animation and everything that goes into videogames was very interesting. Also very well researched!

NetGalley, Ayesha T

A must read for gamers.

NetGalley, Shelly Myers

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a fairly concise history of videogames, I've read a lot of similar books in the past (especially when I briefly worked for a gaming website), but honestly this is probably one of the best I've come across.

NetGalley, Stephen Kelley

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Having lived through the growth of gaming era, this was a fun walk through the past. My first gaming experiences came from playing the arcade game Space Invaders and a first ti me two-and-a-half-hour binge on Pac-Man, where a buddy of mine and I played so long and hard we rubbed the skin off our pointing fingers and developed blisters. Fanatics aren’t born, they are created.

Author Charlie Fish’s book starts way before my initial experiences, opening the door to a time when games were birthed in companies and at universities. The book is nicely split into sensible chapters, which include platforms, the most important creators, companies and marketing, gender representation, and the games themselves. His choice to break the games discussion into decades was a good idea, as the gamer universe is huge and recent games would have dwarfed their ancestors. This enabled a balanced view of the games most popular in the 80s, 90s, etc. I also enjoyed the numerous colored pictures of the various consoles and games.

NetGalley, Dee Arr