Galaga (e-book)

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scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Galaga (e-book)

Postby scotland » May 12th, 2016, 8:27 pm

Galaga by Micheal Kimball
Book 4 of the "Boss Fight" series of books
Published June 2014.
Ebook price: $5

Classification: 4F unfit for service

Laconic Review: A boy who loved Galaga in the early 1980s grew up to write a book marketed to be about Galaga, and containing various Galaga tips and trivia, but decided to mix that that random trivia with his personal account of his horrible abusive childhood. Avoid this book for high score.

Review:
The book is marketed to be about Galaga, with the description including a small clause about how Galaga got the author through a difficult childhood. Unfortunately, that aspect takes over the book the same way a cow would take over your living room...and leaves behind the same smell.

I got this ebook as part of a bundle - a video game bundle - Not a bundle on abusive dysfunctional families, because - and this may surprise the author and editor, video games and child abuse are different subjects with different markets. Sure when you buy a bundle, it is like buying a pig in a poke, but I wasn't expecting a poke in the eye. Poke!

This 266 pages book is a collection of factoids about Galaga, much of it from googling about Galaga. Each factoid is a page, so basically its 266 things about Galaga - or about "acclaimed novelist" Micheal Kimball, because that is what the book becomes. Sometimes he simply invents things about Galaga (and talks about inventing it later on), but this leaves you without any faith in any of it, even if he doesn't say he made it up, whether its about Galaga or his childhood.

The book begins okay, discussing some gameplay, questions on what the Boss Galagas actually are, who at Namco worked on it, etc. That beginning is probably a decent magazine article on Galaga. There are no photos like a magazine would have, and that hurts, as does the lack of structure and personal writing style. About a third of the way through, it dives into his abusive childhood, and pretty much oscillates between another possibly made up factoid on Galaga, and one on Micheal Kimball himself.

Rather than read this book, please spend the $5 and your time dropping some quarters at some arcade machine in your area. Galaga, the arcade game, is a classic - Galaga the book by Micheal Kimball is rubbish.

Sut
Posts: 845
Joined: April 8th, 2015, 4:23 pm

Re: Galaga (e-book)

Postby Sut » May 16th, 2016, 3:24 pm

Hmm seems like Galaga is a vehicle for the author to tell his story rather than the story of Galaga. To be honest it sounds more like therapy for the author than entertainment.


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