The Midnight Tiger

[rolenta]

I rarely criticize other people's books but when I read this one, I couldn't hold back. When I first heard about the Midnight Tiger: The Complete Guide to Atari 2600 Video Games by Ben Coulson, I almost suspended publishing the 2nd edition of ABC To The VCS for fear that the market couldn't support two similar books. I needn't have worried!

The Midnight Tiger (someone please tell me what the title means!) consists of capsule reviews of approximately 600 games. The author then includes reviews of each of the companies that manufacturered games for the 2600. Here is the review for Commavid and the quality of this review is reflected throughout the entire book. This is exactly how it appears in the book:

"COMMAVID - NUMBER OF GAMES - 7
CommaVid was a small German company that released some of the rarest games ever. Games such as MagicCard and Video Jogger are almost impossible to find. Although not worldbeaters games such as Room of Doom and Cosmic Swarm were very playable. Like others though they were in financial difficulties before the great crash which simply hastened their demise."

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Small German company?

[Kid Ice]

I just happened to stumble upon this on Amazon, and I immediately RUSHED to the message board to report on this find. File this under "considerable, but not quite amazing, coincidence".

Reviews of 600 VCS games?

IMO this review of Comma Vid is on point up until this "German" stuff. So how's the rest of the book?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

EDIT: Oh yeah, Video Jogger, jeez...

[rolenta]

And Magicard is spelled wrong

[zmweasel]

I wanted to second Leonard's emotion regarding The Midnight Tiger, but in less polite terminology: it's complete dogshit. A one-paragraph "review" for each game, no screenshots (or ANY artwork), hundreds of factual errors, and no critical perspective or insight.

The author, Ben Coulson, often can't manage coherent gameplay descriptions, and even falls for the April Fool's "announcement" of Duke Nukem 2600, citing it as a genuine homebrew!

This "book" is nothing but a painfully ignorant manifesto by a semi-literate game fan. It's an insult to classic gamers. It's an insult to anyone with a double-digit IQ.

As for the "publisher," it's a company (www.upfrontpublishing.com) that YOU pay to print and distribute your "book." This makes a lot of sense, because no REAL publisher would've touched this thing.

-- Z.

[swlovinist]

I agree that the book is lacking, but I respect someone for at least attempting to make one. I too am an inspiring writer, working on a game book project hopefully ready next year by CGE. I will not hopefully make the same mistakes this person did......no pics? truly awful. I can forgive some of the the mistakes, but not all of them.

[Arcade Antics]

I too am an inspiring writer, working on a game book project hopefully ready next year by CGE. I will not hopefully make the same mistakes this person did......

I'm guessing you meant "aspiring" writer.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I'm a perspiring writer myself. Darn deadlines...