Geek Read: Halo and Philosophy: Intellect Evolved

Title: Halo and Philosophy: Intellect Evolved
Publisher:  Popular Culture and Philosophy

Authors: There's a lot.
Published:  07/06/2011

Page Count: 210 pages

Final Verdict 6.5/10

Let me point out a few things first before I set out on my epic quest of knowledge. The publishers, Popular Culture and Philosophy, create these series of books (with all equally terrible puns for titles) finding philosophy in everything from sports to celebrities to god forsaken Twilight novels. I had gifted my dad the Seinfeld and Philosophy book for his birthday (him and I both being big Seinfeld fans) a few years ago, and completely forgot about it. When I came home toting my new Halo and Philosophy, he ran upstairs into his room and snatched his copy of Seinfeld and Philosophy, opens it about halfway where his bookmark was and tells me "Honey, it took me months to get to this point in a 200-page book until my mind was so blown I had to stop." My father being an incredibly intelligent man with a Masters degree in Mathematics and 30 years of teaching experience had difficulty grasping the subject matter in his book, and I, a n00b, was going to attempt to absorb the knowledge that it was offering?

Challenge Accepted.

 The book starts with a little briefing explaining how these books work and the fact that there are multiple authors involved and the chapters are going to be defined by difficulty level, quite literally, appropriately named Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary. I see what you did there, you witty philosophers, you. This seems like an easy enough system to explain, I mean, any kind of gamer is used to the concept by now. Regardless, this seemed incredibly hard to grasp because of the level of language used and the expressions applied. I understood right then and there it was time to polish my ol' pens and get ready to jot notes down like back in high school. I can tell you now that it's all over that my notebook has 10 filled pages of words, people, events or expressions I had to research to get the full idea of the book. I did so thank the heavens for dictionary.com and wikipedia.org this past week.

But let's get on with it. The first words of warning I will give is that this is not a leisure read for anyone not currently studying philosophy. There are many highly complex concepts that are being thrown at you, and in most cases, in less then user-friendly wording. This book expects you to have a prior knowledge of philosophy and a good understanding of it at that, or research and a second read-through will most likely be necessary. Though philosophical discussions and theories have often intrigued me in the past and peeked my interest, I can't say I went in there with a good understanding of philosophy's history or standards.

This isn't where the brain punishment ends. You must have an open mind to accept the theories and ideas thrown at you. Sometimes it feels far-fetched, stretched, and sometimes you might not see the relation at all, but that's the beauty of it; you don't have to accept anything, it's made simply to make you think. Although this brings me to something I hadn't quite expected. I had never tackled a full blown book about philosophy and I was a little shocked at the sometimes abruptly-ending chapters, though it makes perfect sense as conclusions can't really be drawn. This forced me to pace myself; Read. Stop. Think. Read on. Rather then marathon read, as I would jump from subject to subject and go "wait, what?".

Though this book brought forth some truly interesting concepts in the world of deep-thought-meets-video-games, some authors did it better then others. Only a few chapters are truly balanced in speaking of the theory and the relation to the game. Some others feel like they are either just speaking of Halo, or just of philosophy rather then how they are involved with each other.

The last bit I'll discuss is the improper use of the "difficulty level" chapters. One of the first essays goes into hardcore philosophical history and theories that I felt weren't introduced properly enough for the average reader to follow along and required from me a fair bit of research to try and keep up, whereas towards the end, in the Heroic and Legendary chapters, the language level was much closer to a college student's and sometimes talked very little of the philosophical contents of their essay and more about how the guns go bang. It felt like a neat idea to be able to follow a learning curve throughout the book but the concept didn't really work out in the end.

Overall, some parts were mind-blowing, others lackluster, and some even managed to tug a little on my heartstrings with nostalgia while others where utterly frustrating and quite possibly made my brain bleed. The book had potential, but due to it's incredibly limited target audience, the inconsistent feel of the quality of the essays and language level, and the botched difficulty scale, this book will have to settle on 6.5 pew pews out of 10 for it's shortcomings.

Geek Read: All Your Base Are Belong To Us: How Fifty Years of Video Games Conquered Pop Culture

Title: All Your Base Are Belong To Us: How Fifty Years Of Video Games Conquered Pop Culture
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Author: Harold Goldberg
Published: 05/04/2011
Page Count: 352 pages

Final Verdict 9/10~

So I was hoping this book to be a winner, something I could enjoy so that I may save all the excessive swearing for at least my second post. My expectations for a book that names itself after one of gaming's most popular inside-jokes were pretty high, and yet I was facing a flimsy paperback novel unadorned with the beautiful, colorful screenshots and pictures I've grown accustomed to in the many gaming books that have already found their home on my shelf. Though I'm definitely not one who relies on pretty pictures to define the integrity of a book, I'm not going to deny that it usually helps when you're talking about a visual media to have visual aids throughout.

I have to start by saying the title is a smidge misleading. It does promise to inform you on the way video games have conquered pop culture, but not how that information was going to be delivered.

Harold Goldberg spent 3 years of his life dedicated to interviewing media giants such as the ever beloved, ever smiling Mr. Miyamoto, to put together this golden nugget of gaming history. Although, this book isn't really gaming's history, it isn't even that much about the games. It focuses more on the founders, creators and important people whom helped video games become a mainstream media and/or helped gaming take important steps forward in their evolution. This is an interesting point of view though, as most books concentrate either on a historical outline by concentrating on the games-of-the-day rather then the who behind it all which helped this book stand out from the growing pile of other gaming history books.

I know other reviewers critique this book on the inexactitude of the details. Gaming had such a rough start, that this isn't something that really bothers me in any respect because the odds of getting the honest facts are to me very slim. If the timeline isn't accurate enough, it's your prerogative to bitch and moan about it and spew out what you believe is right, but you sure as hell can't really argue with the author about it as it's not really the point he's making.

It was really interesting to find out the professional roots of gaming's pioneers and to discover their hopes and ambitions and what their personal goals were with video games. The personalities you get to "meet" throughout the book are so eccentric and their stories so intriguing that you can't help but feel for them, from the disappointment of repeated failures to the ecstasy of hitting it big. I was grateful to learn more about the faces behind my favorite creations all condensed into one handy book

Another interesting factor is that the writing is user-friendly enough to compel a non-gamer to read, and yet peppered with enough details and obscure tidbits for the more experienced gamer to indulge in, though the more hardcore gamers usually stick their chins in the air and claim they already know it all. I will add though, I have to admit my ever-slight annoyance at the seemingly never ending corny gaming metaphors. It feels as though authors can't help but splurge in bad gaming humor which is just face-palm worthy. This annoyance is like gum on my shoe though. It's annoying but I don't care enough to stop walking.

Another admirable point I enjoy is the objective standpoint Harold takes. Though this was obviously a labor of love from an experienced game critic, he doesn't try to cram any opinions down your throat. This is especially appreciated in chapters like the one concerning video game controversy in games such as Grand Theft Auto. The facts are played out and clearly defined, yet it permits you to take your own position on the matter, quickly switching to concentrate on the psychological toll the incident has taken on the game creators rather then ramble on about what is right or wrong and why, which clearly no one will agree on (ever) anyways. This is a breath of fresh air as most gamers are passionate people who feel the need to preach their love of games to you like door-to-door religious recruiters having a 'roid rage with a lot more bad language.

Truly, this book is wonderfully written and contains fascinating facts about more then the history of games, as it also explores the many turns games have taken, to movie and book deals, to technological advances games inspired and much more. There's a richness in this book that few others have, and I believe part of that is due to having an experienced writer behind the whole thing. A gaming book written by a passionate gamer that is also a professional writer that has experienced some important events of gaming's life firsthand is a major advantage on the lonely nerd with Microsoft Word and a lot to say  like myself.

Overall this book is everything it promises to be and delivers what it promises to deliver, purely and simply. How Fifty Years of Video Games Conquered Pop Culture is exactly what you'll learn in this quirky and enticing book though maybe not in the way you expected to at first. The title may not be entirely accurate, and sure it is far from a complete collection of the important people in the life of gaming, but it's really all you need for a general look. Not only is this book good, it takes what you knew about games and pushed it to the next level and explained the why and how and who. I have a hard time finding something wrong with it, other then I wanted more, and I really don't think that's a flaw at all. I'll have to give this 9 pixels out of 10.