[.ca] Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age 1971-1984 (ISBN 0262524201)

From Amazon.co.uk:
It was a time when technology was king, status was determined by your high score and video games were blitzing the world... Supercade is the first book to illustrate and document the history, legacy and visual language of the video game phenomenon, from the fist interactive blips of electronic light at Brookhaven National Labs and the creation of Spacewar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the invention of the TV Game Project and the myriad systems of Magnavox, Atari, Coleco and Mattel that followed. From Pong to Pac-Man, Asteroids to Zaxxon, more than 50 million people around the world have come of age within the electronic flux of video games, their subconscious forever etched with images projected from arcade and home video game systems. Exuberantly written and illustrated in full colour, Supercade pays tribute to the technology, games and visionaries of one of the most influential periods in the history of computer science--one that profoundly shaped the modern technological landscape and helped change the way people view entertainment. The book includes contributions from such commentators and participants as Ralph Baer, Julian Dibbell, Keith Feinstein, Joe Fielder, Lauren Fielder, Justin Hall, Leonard Herman, Steven Johnson, Steven Kent, Nick Montfort, Bob Parks, Carl Steadman and Tom Vanderbilt. --Miles Taylor

Wonderful...Captures the authentic feel of the golden days:
Van Burnham's book is a true piece of art - it doesn't try to exhaustively present historical data, or be all-inclusive. It offers to take the reader for a ride through the star system that some call the Golden Age of Video Games. She gives us visual glimpses of some of the brightest stars, with just enough narrative to give depth to the experience. This book is the real thing - it comes from the heart, which is rare these days especially among classic videogame junkies. It manages to convey the sense of awe and wonder that one may have felt when standing in a darkened arcade room in 1980. A rare gem, and a classic in its own right. Long live Van Burnham!

Tried the rest. This is the BEST coffee table book offered:
In recent years, I had bought the other similar historical reference books on the subject and saved this one for last because I took the bad reviews about the photo quality seriously. I work in printing/graphic design and I avoided buying the book until the price came down. After thumbing through it for only five minutes, I knew I'd found the best one. Yes, it may be true that many of the images could have lifted from MAME screen shots but here's my take on that. I was looking for the best VISUAL record of the era. That's what this about isn't it? Walking into an arcade today may have the same visual appeal with all the lights and noises, but since the late 80's, our expectations obviously changed. No one can milk a quarter for more than 3 minutes anymore. My memories of the old arcades are the unique characters, the first time that we were able to play with multiple players and all those other "firsts" that influenced what we see today. This "found art" really takes me back in time. The images may only be low rez screen shots, but for the most part they are clean and made more fun by being enlarged to the point where you can see all the pixels. I think the word from art school I'm trying to remember is MACRO. Where you zoom IN to a particular piece of the image and crop it to make it more interesting visually. These photos are big and bleed beyond the edge of the page. It's funny now to how those huge pixels made us spend so much in the 80's in our era or super slick realism in current games. While THE FIRST QUARTER and THE ULTIMATE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES may be a "good read" for historical facts and funny stories, they lacked imagery. The book ARCADE FEVER is another strong visual book for it's sharp photography of actual game cabinets and more traditional screen shots. Supercade is an artsy (but not cheesy) way of showing the era. I was also happy to see arcade games featured that came along years after 1984. This book goes the extra mile visually.

Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age '71-'84:
The video industry took the world by storm on the 70s and 80s. In many ways- it still does. Children of all ages are fascinated with the legendary Pac-Man, Ape Escape, bubble boble, Snowbounding, Wings of Fury and a host of other action games. This book chronicles the development of the video culture into a virtual frenzy. It is perfect for video enthusiasts everywhere.

Nice Photos, Informative Text:
I thought that I would end up just browsing through this book looking at the pictures. Instead, I found a great deal of information in the easy-to-read text. The introductory material is interesting. After that, many games are covered in chronological order. Boy, did it bring back memories. I recall encountering a lot of the same information at the time, lending some credibility to the material. Great history of arcade and home games during a formative decade of the genre. Recommended.

A great coffee table book on video games:
Van Burnham has put together a pretty impressive and lively book about the history of the Bronze and Golden Ages of video games. The book is very colorful, with lots (and I mean LOTS) of borrowed pictures and MAME screenshots, each with a story or small blurb about the particular subject at hand. Burnham covers both arcade and home console video games in this piece. Some neat extras include interviews with designers/programmers, a story by a Starcade game show contestent, and a fairly complete timeline. Burnham has done her research, filling the book with detailed historical record of the first video game (Spacewar!), the first interactive CRT game (Willy's Tennis For Two), and the MIT railroad club, among others. There are a few problems, however. The layout of the pictures is a filled with lots of unnecessary filtering (i.e. the "old and grey" Commodore PET... we had color photography in the 1970s too!) and blurring, and can get garish at times. You could even say artsy-fartsy or pretentious. There are also some minor historical errors. Tapper is a Bally Midway creation (the book calls it "Atari's Tapper"). Activisions's Alan Miller didn't design Atari's arcade Football; Dave Stubbins, Steve Bristow, and Mike Albaugh did. I also think that Burnham, in her game blurbs and descriptions, tended to be a little less colorful; preferring to copy verbatim from her research. This gives the impression that quantity took precidence over quality. The reader could get the impression that the author got a bit lazy towards the end of compiling this book, in the process of cramming in as many games as possible. Other than these minor gripes, this book is a solid "period piece" that belongs on any classic gaming fan's coffee table.