interesting premise, unsatisfying ending ( )

I got halfway through this and wasn't that interested. Now, I don't even know where it is.

Perhaps it is because i own at least one of every gaming system that came out since 2600, but this book spoke to me. To watch the protagonist's self-absorption, and his self inflicted alienation with humanity, emotions, and eventually his own sanity as the book progresses, spoke to me as i recall spending literally hundreds of hours on a single game and can recognize the dangerous step from moderately unhealthy obsession to overpowering mania. For those not fully versed in video games and the idea of losing oneself for such extended hours at a stretch, one must of necessity make allusions to characters with overwhelming mania and hubris, foremost in my mind, Colonel Kurtz and Captain Ahab. When one can extrapolate so much of the underpinnings of the human psyche from games such as Donkey Kong and Pac Man and turn them into rants smart enough to make you wonder if that might actually be true.... If nothing else, the book deserves to be read as an interesting take on a driven, erudite, manic's view of classic video games. Spot on. ( )

The cover promises that this is to video games what [book: The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay] is to comics, and I suppose that's true. It was both engaging and literary, a combination that I rarely find (I'm just not that highbrow). That said, I had some major problems with its focus on men, which I suppose is not the fault of the (male) author. But I do get sick of novels that don't pass the Bechdel test. ( )

The cover promises that this is to video games what [book: The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay] is to comics, and I suppose that's true. It was both engaging and literary, a combination that I rarely find (I'm just not that highbrow). That said, I had some major problems with its focus on men, which I suppose is not the fault of the (male) author. But I do get sick of novels that don't pass the Bechdel test. ( )