Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of

I've been subbed to Stuart's channel for 10 years or so at the time of writing this review, and I was very surprised when he announced he was releasing a book years after releasing a film [Ashens and the Quest For The Gamechild]. It was a time in which it was very fashionable to ghost-write a book, have your name in big letters on the front and make a small profit out of it, yet he made it very clear that he wanted to write something about a thing that he's worryingly passionate about: tat. Also, videogames from the 80s. The result? A video-essay made by Stuart Clive Ashen that exists physically in the tangible world in the shape of a book.It attempts to show everybody, but also making people his age be reminded of, and era in which videogames weren't all Pac-Man, Donkey Kong or even Pong and its millions of clones. Whether it was a legitimate inexperience in programming, absolute cash-grabbing scams or people whose lives seemingly revolved around releasing countless abominations to humanity in a cassette tape (yes, really), there are many, many examples of how children, with pocket money and very little information (if any) about games on the shelves, were often disappointed and/or misled by the awful art cover from 1980 to 1995.It's full of his characteristic dry humour, it casts many screenshots of bizarre situations in the games and it has short reviews made by various personalities of the worst games of their childhoods. It is worth mentioning that it's been crowdfunded through Unbound. so it means that it wasn't made for the sake of having written "an book", rather it was giving something a genuine go and ask the public, or subscribers in his case, for their kind donations and make it for real.In conclusion, it an absolute must-read for everybody who enjoys playing videogames no matter how casually or often they do. It's been written by a very funny bloke who reviews stuff in front of a cut-down brown sofa, sitting down with his enormous hands holding whatever he's bought on Poundland, exceedingly out-of-date food or recording a Christmas/Easter/Halloween special. What could possibly go right.

I’ve long been a fan of the Ashens channel on youtube and I love his youtube video series of the same name. I, unfortunately, forgot all about the creation of this book and the crowdfunding of it, etc. so I didn’t pick it up until it had been out for quite some time. Still, now that I’ve finally got my grubby mitts on it, I’m pleased to say that it’s excellent!The premise of the book is that Dr. Ashen (and Larry Bundy Jr. in one guest entry) essentially “review” some terrible old games. The book is also interspersed with various semi-famous people who describe the worst game that they had ever bought. Dr. Ashen keeps the scope of the games to old PC systems from the UK, so being from the U.S. and being a bit too young for those systems (I didn’t get into gaming until the Gameboy Color), I didn’t really recognize any of them (aside from what little I’ve gleaned about them from youtube videos). Still, despite me knowing next to nothing about the ZX Spectrum or the Amstrad I still found this book quite entertaining. It garnered quite a few chuckles out of me. My only complaint is that the list of backers at the end takes up quite a bit of space and further exacerbates my disappointment in how short the book is. Well, maybe it’s not fair to say the book is too short, rather that I wish it were longer!So, I could see this book being a very niche product – I only imagine that fans of Stuart Ashen or fans of books on old computer games would ever pick this up. Still, if you happen to fall into one of those two categories or if you like a bit of wry humor in your books, go ahead and pick it up!

Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of was a series of videos by Stuart Ashen done on his YouTube channel. This book, crowdfunded on Unbound, is a continuation of that series. It should be noted that none of the entries are repeats of ones the author has covered on the show.Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of covers eighteen games of various genres released between 1980 and 1995 for the various home computers of the time, including the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. Entries begin with the first page showing a screenshot of the start screen with the title, format, year of release, developer, publisher, and original price (in pounds) listed below it. The following pages describe the synopsis of the game and how it plays, all done with Ashen's sense of British humor. Scattered through the pages are screenshots from the game, helping show what is described and underlined with a humorous caption. Each entry is capped off by a box detailing reviews and other versions of the game.It should be noted that one of the entries is done by T.V. presenter and YouTuber "Guru" Larry Bundy Jr. and that one of the entries (that I did not include in the count of above) Ashen did was on a terrible game he made in his youth. Ashen also included an original terrible game that anyone can be played if you have a ZX Spectrum and input the code given in the book into the machine.Between every couple of entries are interviews with done with various people, asking what the most disappointing game they bought was. There is also an interview with Ste Pickford that goes over how it was like creating games during the period.I quite like TOGYPNHO. It's a nice, funny look at terrible games in a period that isn't looked at all that much in game history. It has actually made me want to look into the period some more and experience some of the good games on the ZX Spectrum and the like.However, there are two problems I found with it. The first problem was the first three entries. The games are of similar genres and so reading the entries (which are ordered alphabetically) one after another made it monotonous, though the following entries do break it up. The second problem was that, by the end, the entries became somewhat repetitive. After all, there is some many different ways Ashen can describe bad graphics and gameplay before it starts to wear on the reader.

It's Ashens innit! 5 stars

Hier geht es, bei dem Titel wenig überraschend, um schlechte Spiele.Ich habe dieses Buch und seinen Nachfolger allerdings nicht "am Stück" gelesen, dafür eignet es sich meiner Meinung nach nur bedingt, aber seitdem sie im Badezimmer aufliegen (man mag mir Blasphemie vorwerfen) hab ich fast noch mehr Spaß damit. Es ist jetzt nicht so als ob man sich wegen der Handlung oder der Personen besonders konzentrieren müsste, und wenn man nach zwei Absätzen das Buch weglegt (das hab ich nach 2 Absätzen übrigens noch nie geschafft) findet man problemlos wieder rein. Am Stück vermute ich ist es etwas wiederholend.Und ja, es gibt einige Seiten an die Crowdfunder darin. Damit kann ich aber leben.

This book is very entertaining and interesting. It is quite short, as almost half of it is devoted to a list of patrons who supported the publication through Unbound, but for its price, it’s definitely worth it. The included guest articles tend to be as great as Ashens’ content, especially “The State of the Industry” by Ste Pickford, which delivers a glimpse of daily life at a large-scale 1980s British game company.The ebook also includes a very short and simple text adventure at the end which you play through hyperlinks. It is a very nice touch, quite entertaining and funny.

Great book by a great creator, lots of interesting pieces about obscure games that I, indeed, have not heard of. The sections written by guests are quite good as well, and could put you on to some more creators to watch. As for the material quality, the book is appealing to look at and easy to hold, and shipped with no damage and in good time. Strongly recommend.

Livre interressant , j'ai "redecouvert" des jeux que j'avais oublié!.Je trouve ca bien que des livres sortent sur des jeux "oubliés". Il y en a marre des bouquins sur les "classiques" , Mario, zelda , Pacman , street fighter etc....Par contre petit bemol pour ce volume , le format est un peu petit. J'ai commandé ce livre apres avoir commandé le 2eme livre de la serie. Il n'ont pas le meme le format. Et je prefere vraiment le format du volume suivant.