mrericmendez's review against another edition
3.0
Has good examples throughout the book of the importance of the video game culture using actual games as examples. It's a bit of a disconnect for those of us who refuse to use Xbox so that may be on me for not understanding the left4dead references. The principles laid out throughout the book have been placed seemingly haphazardly and without much conscious thought, it seems. With a bit more organized effort, a revised edition would probably contain more golden nuggets of information for readers. Overall, I'm grateful for the book in this field, which is a newer genre (one of the principles discussed in the book using the Flower game, which i absolutely adore). I'd say 3/5 stars for the current edition
richard76's review against another edition
3.0
“Extra Lives” starts off strong. The author has a talent for taking elements, facets or facts of the game industry and putting them together in ways I’ve just never thought about. For example, I usually think of meaningfulness in games in terms of intellectual engagement or artistic merit, but he also talks about the raw visceral experience games can create, the ways in which videogames can be emotionally or even physically affecting. He also talks about how most game designers come from programming or engineering backgrounds (which I didn’t know; I thought most of them came from more purely creative backgrounds), and how writers have traditionally been de-prioritized in the process (which I did know), and how that adds up to profound implications for the games that are made.
But then the narrative kind of goes off. His specific selection of games is puzzling. He seems to have chosen them due to reasons of personal appeal rather than industry significance, which I suppose is fair but limits the impact of his message. For instance, he exiles to the appendix a fascinating and insightful interview with Peter Molyneux, which really should have been in the main text.
The author says it’s because he couldn’t figure out how to weave it in, but that’s because his narrative spirals into semi-autobiographical elements that contribute little to his overarching themes; the text never really recovers. For example, he brings up his cocaine addiction. At first, I thought this was promising, an opportunity to explore the ways in which videogames are – and are not – addictive, and why gamers have such a reputation for being obsessive. But no.
I was also put off his writing style. Whom does he think he’s addressing? He consistently uses esoteric words I don’t understand. It’s hard for me to see the language in this book being accessible to a mainstream audience. While he occasionally employs a very nice turn of phrase, he tends to say things in a much more complicated and convoluted way than necessary. As a writer, I understand and appreciate how nuance can be conveyed with very careful use of wording and sentence construction, but his use frequently goes too far and simply ends up cloaking many of his points in a layer of confusion.
So ultimately, I find the book to be a mixed experience. I do feel enlightened about the video game industry; but I also feel frustrated by questions – implicit and explicit – that the author ultimately fails to address.
But then the narrative kind of goes off. His specific selection of games is puzzling. He seems to have chosen them due to reasons of personal appeal rather than industry significance, which I suppose is fair but limits the impact of his message. For instance, he exiles to the appendix a fascinating and insightful interview with Peter Molyneux, which really should have been in the main text.
The author says it’s because he couldn’t figure out how to weave it in, but that’s because his narrative spirals into semi-autobiographical elements that contribute little to his overarching themes; the text never really recovers. For example, he brings up his cocaine addiction. At first, I thought this was promising, an opportunity to explore the ways in which videogames are – and are not – addictive, and why gamers have such a reputation for being obsessive. But no.
I was also put off his writing style. Whom does he think he’s addressing? He consistently uses esoteric words I don’t understand. It’s hard for me to see the language in this book being accessible to a mainstream audience. While he occasionally employs a very nice turn of phrase, he tends to say things in a much more complicated and convoluted way than necessary. As a writer, I understand and appreciate how nuance can be conveyed with very careful use of wording and sentence construction, but his use frequently goes too far and simply ends up cloaking many of his points in a layer of confusion.
So ultimately, I find the book to be a mixed experience. I do feel enlightened about the video game industry; but I also feel frustrated by questions – implicit and explicit – that the author ultimately fails to address.
nickfourtimes's review against another edition
3.0
1) ''Godforsaken is often used to describe the world's woebegone landscapes. But to say that God has forsaken something, there must be some corresponding indication that God had ever shown any interest in it, and, in the case of Edmonton, Alberta, this was not immediately apparent.''
2) ''Soon my biweekly phone call to my cocaine dealer was a weekly phone call. Soon I was walking into the night, handing hundreds of dollars in cash to a Russian man whose name I did not even know, waiting in alleys for him to come back---which he always did, though I never fully expected him to---and retreating home, to my Xbox, to GTA IV, to the electrifying solitude of my mind at play in an anarchic digital world. Soon I began to wonder why the only thing I seemed to like to do while on cocain was play video games. And soon I realized what video games have in common with cocaine: Video games, you see, have no edge. You have to appreciate them. They do not come to you.''
3) ''So what have games given me? Experiences. Not surrogate experiences, but actual experiences, many of which are as important to me as any real memories. Once I wanted games to show me things I could not see in any other medium. Then I wanted games to tell me a story in a way no other medium can. Then I wanted games to redeem something absent in myself. Then I wanted a game experience that points not toward but at something. Playing GTA IV on coke for weeks and then months at a time, I learned that maybe all a game can do is point at the person who is playing it, and maybe this has to be enough.''
2) ''Soon my biweekly phone call to my cocaine dealer was a weekly phone call. Soon I was walking into the night, handing hundreds of dollars in cash to a Russian man whose name I did not even know, waiting in alleys for him to come back---which he always did, though I never fully expected him to---and retreating home, to my Xbox, to GTA IV, to the electrifying solitude of my mind at play in an anarchic digital world. Soon I began to wonder why the only thing I seemed to like to do while on cocain was play video games. And soon I realized what video games have in common with cocaine: Video games, you see, have no edge. You have to appreciate them. They do not come to you.''
3) ''So what have games given me? Experiences. Not surrogate experiences, but actual experiences, many of which are as important to me as any real memories. Once I wanted games to show me things I could not see in any other medium. Then I wanted games to tell me a story in a way no other medium can. Then I wanted games to redeem something absent in myself. Then I wanted a game experience that points not toward but at something. Playing GTA IV on coke for weeks and then months at a time, I learned that maybe all a game can do is point at the person who is playing it, and maybe this has to be enough.''
ubercoat's review against another edition
1.0
Though I don’t play as often as I used to, I consider myself a gamer. I like the idea of someone unpacking the idea of why video games matter, and I think that topic would make for a good book. Unfortunately, Extra Lives is not that book. The problem is not that I necessarily disagree with Bissell’s opinions on whether or not games matter – the problem is that the book really isn’t about that topic at all.
The title is more than a little misleading. While Bissell doesn’t spend much (if any) time discussing why video games matter, a significant amount of time is spent detailing the aspects of narrative-based games that Bissell finds problematic. More often than not, this hinges on the writing in the games – the subtext of which seems to be that the author believes games would be a whole lot better if the industry employed more people like him. Bissell gives the impression that he thinks rather highly of himself, and finds many opportunities to remind the reader of his accomplishments, in-game or otherwise.
The result of all of this, unfortunately, is that the book is an infuriating mess. Bissell is so self-satisfied, his writing so masturbatory, that I found myself actively disliking him not far into the book – and it only gets worse with each subsequent chapter. When he isn’t implying that the video game industry needs more Tom Bissells, he’s going on, for page after page, about how he plays specific games. Now, I like video games, believe you me – but reading about why he played his Mass Effect character the way he did, or his description of playing Resident Evil for the first time, is painfully boring.
As I alluded to earlier, I really wanted to like this book. It’s a shame that there’s so little there to like.
Suggested alternate title: Tom Bissell Presents The Tom Bissell Story (In Which Video Games are Played)
The title is more than a little misleading. While Bissell doesn’t spend much (if any) time discussing why video games matter, a significant amount of time is spent detailing the aspects of narrative-based games that Bissell finds problematic. More often than not, this hinges on the writing in the games – the subtext of which seems to be that the author believes games would be a whole lot better if the industry employed more people like him. Bissell gives the impression that he thinks rather highly of himself, and finds many opportunities to remind the reader of his accomplishments, in-game or otherwise.
The result of all of this, unfortunately, is that the book is an infuriating mess. Bissell is so self-satisfied, his writing so masturbatory, that I found myself actively disliking him not far into the book – and it only gets worse with each subsequent chapter. When he isn’t implying that the video game industry needs more Tom Bissells, he’s going on, for page after page, about how he plays specific games. Now, I like video games, believe you me – but reading about why he played his Mass Effect character the way he did, or his description of playing Resident Evil for the first time, is painfully boring.
As I alluded to earlier, I really wanted to like this book. It’s a shame that there’s so little there to like.
Suggested alternate title: Tom Bissell Presents The Tom Bissell Story (In Which Video Games are Played)
kikmigi23's review against another edition
3.0
This is a book by a gamer, for gamers, and I'd have to say that you probably need to at least be dating a console gamer to get the most out of it. Readers of Game Informer will probably be able to keep up nicely. The book itself is interesting but suffered from ramblietus. I felt like I was circling points in a LAX holding pattern at times.
bakkabennu's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
If you have played a lot of video games in the last ten years and like reading about narrative theory you will enjoy this. Each chapter loosely focuses on a different game, so the more you have played the better. It tends to get a little repetitive and the author should really burn his thesaurus (hint: the most accurate word is not always the best word), but no other complaints.
If you have played a lot of video games in the last ten years and like reading about narrative theory you will enjoy this. Each chapter loosely focuses on a different game, so the more you have played the better. It tends to get a little repetitive and the author should really burn his thesaurus (hint: the most accurate word is not always the best word), but no other complaints.
forjay's review against another edition
Tom Bissell treats videogames as a serious form of art. He has a literary background, and this book is his attempt to subject modern videogames to the same level of analysis as film, literature, and music. Most of the book works really well, as an erudite outsider's critique of the state of the game industry, but I wish Bissell had taken the time to learn a little bit more about how games are made and how they work. No one would take a film critic seriously if he didn't know the first thing about how films are made, and yet Bissell states outright that he doesn't understand how the games he's critiquing actually work. Despite that one criticism, this book is a good step in the direction of taking videogames seriously as a form of art.
lizardcha's review against another edition
3.0
I'm tempted to give this book a 2 stars but there were a few parts I really enjoyed. I don't think it's fair to title a book "Why video games matter" & then spend 50% doing interviews, 30% giving game reviews/walk-throughs and a mere 20% trying to answer the original question. I could also have done without the GTA coke induced rant (I'm absolutely serious. He rants about playing GTA on coke & how it's not teh same without it -_-) and totally skipped the extra articles he added for god knows what reason. This honestly could have been an excellent book but it falls short by trying to push too much unnecessary information.