Author Doug McCoy

It’s May, and I’ve finally finished the last of all the ebooks I bought with my Christmas money: David Sheff’s Gave Over: How Nintendo Conquered The World.

Game Over is one of the older Nintendo books I have found. I believe the author’s note is dated 1994, and there is no mention of more modern developments like the GameCube, DS, or Wii. The book mostly stays in the era I love, starting with Nintendo’s arcade days and moving through the Famicon, NES, Game Boy, and SNES.

While there is some talk about the development of classic games like Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, the book mostly focuses on the business aspect of Nintendo (a fact suggested by the subtitle; you didn’t think they conquered the world just by having the best games, did you?). This was interesting and contained lots of information I had never heard before, but it was also a little disturbing. I have always regarded Nintendo as the white knight of the video game world and I hated to hear about some of their shrewdness in their business dealings. I also hated to hear about the few times they were bested in business. That was a fear I had expressed way back when I first wrote about purchasing this book, and it was slightly realized. Only slightly, though. I had already known that Nintendo could be shrewd and had made some missteps, so it isn’t as if their image was completely tarnished in my eyes. Just scuffed a little.

There is another book of this title by the same author. I don’t know much about it, though if I had to I would guess that it is an updated version. If you are at all interested in the business side of Nintendo, you will want to check out either one or both of them.

Yet another NES book I hadn’t known about: the Mario Mania Players Guide.

I never had this book, so I can’t say much about it (other than that it would go great with my other NES books).  Fortunately, there is a fellow on YouTube who gives us a complete breakdown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkfkNiTjHNk

Somebody keeps putting great NES posters on Ebay.  I just came across this one, which proclaims “Classic Challenge, Classic Action”.  It features the later versions of Punch Out!! without Mike Tyson, the yellow-label Metroid, and Zelda & Zelda 2.  You can also see a few other games at the bottom, including the newer, non-black label sports games.  Yet another poster I would have loved to have on my wall in the late 80s and would still love to have on my wall now.

I just used some of my birthday money to buy a book that had been on my Amazon.com wishlist for some time: IGN Presents the History of the Legend of Zelda.  I at first thought this might be an attempt to harmonize the timeline of all the Zelda games (something I tried to do as a kid with just the first two NES games and the Game Boy game).  At it turns out, it is really an overview of every major Zelda game from the original NES classic to Twilight Princess.

The book is a quick read, and while it does give a little insider information, it doesn’t give that much.  For that reason, some of the reviews on Amazon.com were negative.  I loved this short book, though, for a couple reasons.  The first is that I love the Zelda series, being an immediate convert from the first time I put the brand new game cartridge in my brand NES on Christmas morning 1986.  That being the case, I am attracted to and affectionate for anything that has to do with Zelda.  The second is that I have not been able to keep up with the series throughout the years.  I got my hands on the original immediately, and on the SNES’s Link To The Past as soon as it was released, and I eventually got to play Zelda 2 in college and Ocarina of Time after graduation, and the Game Boy and Game Boy Advanced games after that.  But I eventually just couldn’t get up, and there is no way that I can now catch up.  To do so would require buying multiple consoles and putting way to much time and energy into the endeavors.  The only possible way I could possible complete each game is by using walkthroughs, which would speed up the process but also reduce the accomplishment, so I’m just not interested.  This quick read, then, which had color pictures of each game’s cover art, is a way for me to at least get a taste of the games which time and responsibilities force me to love from afar, and for that I’m thankful.

You can get this short book for $1.99 at Amazon.com, but you can also read it for free here.  While free is nice, two bucks isn’t a super hardship to get it on your ereader and support independent writing.

As you know if you’ve read ANESthetized, I’m a big fan of the Nintendo “Now You’re Playing With Power” poster.  Just now, a different NES poster popped up on my Ebay feed.  It is a poster featuring the Capcom line of NES games.  There is Bionic Commando, Section Z, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, and several others.  Not as great as the NYPWP poster, but still a pretty cool find.