What is the best way to self-study on video game history?

Video game media maven Patrick Scott Patterson recently posted this on his Facebook page, regarding a question he was asked: "What is the best way to self-study on video game history?"

Here's his answer:

Perhaps I'm fortunate that I got interested in the backstories of video game history earlier than most. When I got hooked on studying that stuff we didn't have the Internet...and since it was during the upswing of the NES getting hot, used bookstores were filled with old video game books and magazines and local libraries were filled with early video game books that nobody else wanted to check out anymore.

These days... both the early consumer video game magazines such as Electronic Games, Joystik and the such... and trade magazines such as Play Meter and Replay... are hard to find, but they are filled with the history of this industry and culture AS IT WAS HAPPENING. I can't stress enough how important that is, as you won't find very much accurate history on the internet. Wikipedia and KLOV entries are cool but many are filled with incomplete or simplified information. And don't get me started on some of the video game documentary films out there. There are some that do it right... World 1-1 very much among them, as is Atari: Game Over and some others... but most are just as simplified or even skewed by people who want to boast up their own relatively minor roles in the much larger tapestry of the industry history.

Total pot luck to find these old mags and books... the 59-magazine lick I got recently is by far the largest I've ever found at once in the 28 years since I started hunting for them (Melissa can tell you stories about such hunts and just how many of them come up empty). Some show up on eBay and Amazon but not often enough to set your watch by it. You'll have to be patient and, these days, typically pay up.

As such, there are some great books published in the modern day that you can hit up as well. The Ultimate History of Video Games (originally printed as The First Quarter) by Steven L. Kent is filled with not only a great deal of video game history but a lot of information that I haven't seen noted in many other places. Blake J. Harris did a great job with Console Wars as well, looking into the 16-bit Wars to a deeper degree than I've ever seen previously, and from a great first-hand point of view that makes it feel more personal. Brett Weiss does a great job of adding in historical notes and value into his write-ups in 100 Greatest Console Video Games and is a person who I'd suggest reading anything he does going forward.

And here's where I post something I only first mentioned in public at the end of the PAX South panel I took part in. I'm aiming down adding the title of author to my many hats with a book that deeply covers a section of video game history I don't feel has been studied enough... and that I might even have studied more on than anyone. I'll be less non-specific in due time smile emoticon

Study this stuff. This is the history of our industry and culture here... and it's going to be up to all of us to carry it forward. Take it seriously.

And if you are fortunate enough to encounter an industry pioneer... ask them questions. Confirm information you've read with them. Ask them about things you haven't seen out there. Many of them are personable and will tell you all you want to know. They lived it, and they leave that legacy with us.

Mattel Intellivision 35 MM Theatrical Trailer

This is one of the coolest video game commercials I've ever seen. Even if you don't like the Intellivision (maybe the control disc drives you batty), give this a look. I never saw it back in the day, but thanks to the magic of YouTube, classic gamers everywhere can check it out. 

Super-Hero Slot Machines

If you haven't been to , Reno, Winstar Casino in Oklahoma or another favorite gambling destination in the last few years, you may be surprised by all the fancy media-related slot machines that have been released. One of the coolest is this slot, which came out last year:

Another favorite is the massive  slot, which I played at Winstar over the weekend (we were there celebrating my wife's birthday--she loves the Wheel of Fortune machine). Both Batman and Wonder Woman do a great job breathing new life into the old TV shows, featuring voice effects, video, and fantastic graphics and gameplay features.

WATCH THE SHOWS ON DVD:

Bram Stoker's Dracula - Sega Genesis

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Sega Genesis

Publisher: Sony Imagesoft

Developer: Traveller's Tales

Side-Scrolling Platform, 1 player.

1993

Based on   artfully directed 1992 film,  for the Genesis casts you in the role of Jonathan Harker, the world's first vampire slayer. The Prince of Darkness has cast a hypnotic spell on your mistress, the lovely Mina Murray, and you intend to rescue her.

Armed with a sword, you must hack and slash your way through seven levels (each of them divided into day and night) of creature feature mayhem. Among other monsters, you'll do battle with bats, wolves, witches, hatchet men and laser-spitting skulls. To help you exterminate these hideous fiends, you can find a gun, some dynamite and several other weapons. Eventually, you'll face Dracula himself. Drive a stake through the world's most famous bloodsucker and you've won the game.

The action in Bram Stoker's Dracula takes place in and around Castle Dracula. You'll walk, jump, crouch and slash your way through a rat-infested inn, mossy fields of jagged rocks, a haunted library, a monstrous barn and a petrified-forest. The levels include moving platforms, secret passages, puzzles, fiery pits, floating tables, hovering walkways, a giant moat and much more.

Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring Gary Oldman and Keanu Reaves, wasn't a masterpiece in terms of storytelling, but it was a lavishly produced film with terrific visuals and some unique camera angles. Bram Stoker's Dracula for the Genesis is also very nice to look at, but if offers nothing new (relative to 1993) in terms of gameplay. The basic platform action is very standard stuff.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a game that brings little or nothing new to the table. After all, every game can't be groundbreaking and revolutionary, but a game should offer some entertainment and a few surprises. Bram Stoker's Dracula offers both of these, but in small doses.

The sword you wield is extremely fast. You can whip that sucker out in a split second and swing it again and again at speeds faster than the eye can see. This would be really cool if it served a purpose other than being able to defeat many of the bosses in a decidedly mindless manner. Some of the bosses require a little strategy to defeat (you must use your special weapons), but others you can just walk up to and kill by hitting them with the sword over and over.

A better use for the sword would be to ward off hordes of rats, bats, skeletons and spiders, but these creatures usually approach you one or two at a time and are easy to kill off. It would be great if at some point in the game you were to get trapped in a graveyard and had to hack and slash your way through hundreds (or at least tens) of skeletons that suddenly began rising from their graves. Rats could even get in on the action.

But, alas, nothing this interesting ever happens in the game. Usually, you just walk and jump along, killing things one at a time, just like in so many other scrolling platform games. At one point some invulnerable witches chase you, and that mixes up the action a little, but with such a fast and powerful sword at your beck and call, it's frustrating not to be able to put it to really good use.

Bram Stoker's Dracula provides a sufficient challenge, but the game is not overly fun. The bosses can be challenging, but you will probably lose most of your health energy by getting snagged on some incredibly annoying spears that pop up at many points throughout the game. There are hidden passages throughout that are marginally enjoyable to explore, and like I said earlier, the graphics are very nice. The music is also very cool. Unfortunately, the game comes up short in terms of pure gameplay.

OTHER VERSIONS OF BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA:

BUY THE FEATURE FILM:

ColecoVisions Podcast #13 -- Carnival and Antarctic Adventure

Check out the new ColecoVisions podcast, episode 13, where I was a guest. Listen to the whole thing, or tune in at the 1:37:50 mark to hear us talk about Carnival and Antarctic Adventure. Click HERE to listen.

Mouse Trap -- Atari 2600

Mouse Trap

Atari 2600

Publisher: Coleco

Developer: Coleco

Genre: Maze

1982 

Description:

Based on the 1981 Exidy coin-op game and the ColecoVision hit, Mouse Trap for the Atari 2600 is a maze game featuring one of the oldest rivalries known to man. You are a mouse, and your enemies are cats. Your job is to maneuver around the maze, eating all of the cheese. When all of the cheese is gone, you move on to the next maze, which is the same in design.

As you gobble up cheese, cats will chase after you and try to bite you. Luckily, if you have any bones in your stockpile, you can temporarily turn the tables on your enemies by morphing into a dog. In each maze you will find four bones that you can add to your arsenal.

Situated on the walls of the maze are eight doors. With a push of the button you can open or close all of the doors simultaneously, allowing you to gain access to certain areas of the maze and close off other areas to trap the cats.

Unlike the ColecoVision and the arcade versions of the game, there are no color-coded doors, no prizes to pick up, no hawks to disrupt your pathways and no IN box to escape into. One thing this game does have that is lacking in the aforementioned versions is an option that allows you to play the game with invisible mazes.

Review:

It was surprising to see Coleco bring Mouse Trap from their ColecoVision to the Atari 2600. The most unusual aspect of Mouse Trap, whether you are playing it on the ColecoVision or at the arcade, is its system of opening and closing color-coded doors. With the Atari 2600's one-button joystick, this feat is impossible, so what we are left with is a strangely colorless version of Mouse Trap with doors that open or close in unison with the push of a single button. Even with this liability, Coleco did a nice job in bringing Mouse Trap to their strongest competitor's console.

 The action may lack the color-coded door system, but it turns out that Mouse Trap is a good little maze game. It's not as exciting or as colorful as the Atari 2600 versions of Jr. Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man, Mouse Trap's controls and graphics are superior.

Other than the game's faded colors, the graphics are very good. The cats, mouse and dog look surprising similar to those in the ColecoVision version of the game. The music is nothing to get excited about, but the dog barking actually sounds kind of like a dog, well, barking.

One area where to fault Coleco on is the omission of the IN box. In the other versions of Mouse Trap you could enter a little rectangle in the center of the screen and instantly transport to one of the four corners of the maze. Wizard of Wor for the Atari 2600 has a similar feature that works just fine.

So, Mouse Trap is a stripped-to-the-essentials game with several features missing, but it is still fun to play.
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OTHER VERSIONS OF MOUSE TRAP:

Interview at Classic Game Fest

At the 2014 Classic Game Fest, the guys stopped my table for a quick interview: