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Lucky Wander Boy
It's the mid-90s and Adam Pennyman's got no particular place to go, so he finds himself in a Los Angeles apartment with a cranky soon-to-be-ex girlfriend and a copy of MAME, everyone's favorite game emulator. His collection grows until he feels compelled to document it, or his life as realized through his gaming, in an unpublishable text called the Catalogue of Obscure Entertainments.
Unimpressed, his girlfriend starts edging out of his life just as a chance meeting with a former friend lands Adam a copywriting gig at Portal Entertainment, a dot-com ostensibly in the process of turning various videogame properties into movies. (The real business, of course, involves turning smoke and mirrors into venture cap; alumni of, oh, D*N or El*ctr*m*dia are encouraged to up the dosage of whatever they're taking to quell the flashbacks during the passages describing Portal's office culture.)
But Portal puts Adam within reach of the gamer's Grail: Lucky Wander Boy, a rare and bizarre game created by the reclusive Araki Itachi. Lucky Wander Boy was years ahead of its time, and so intricately coded that no one, no one, ever reached third level. Or have they? Adam nearly did once, long ago, and has been haunted ever since by a memory of gameplay that just couldn't have truly happened... could it? Adam will go far to find out. Very far indeed.
I love me some metaphysical conceits in my fiction, so strictly for the description of the Lucky Wander Boy game I'd rate this book highly. (It doesn't exist. It couldn't exist. I want it to exist. Dammit.) The author's done a fine job capturing a certain kind of thinking that occurs when smart people start reading deeper meaning into their obsessions.
Adam's ruminations on many of the classics (Pac-Man, Microsurgeon, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., et al.) ring player-true -- which is why it's so glorious and scary when he goes off the rails with you right beside him. If you played in the days when primitive graphics and freshly-minuted archetypes made gameplay somehow even more addictive, this book will cause howls of recognition. Best of all, it's well-written and for the most part affectionate to the subculture; be glad this quasi-historical novel was written by the promising Weiss and not by that maiden aunt of yours who wouldn't let you have any more quarters.
You can purchase Lucky Wander Boy from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
so he finds himself in a Los Angeles apartment with a cranky soon-to-be-ex girlfriend and a copy of MAME,
Right here is where the story would lose me. It is nigh impossible that some nerd with MAME whose mission is to seek out this one mythical video game is going to have a girlfriend in the first place.
If it were a movie I'd be screaming at the screen.
So why haven't the arcade games so formative to geek youth (okay, geek 30somethings, young in the glory days of arcade play) gotten their due from the rest of popular culture?
Am I the only one who saw Tron? Last Starfighter? Mario Brothers?
Would an InSync ballad to Centipede be what you are looking for? Popular culture has been riddled with the games I loved to play. And vice versa. This whining is unseemly.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Since you brought it up, how much money DOES Hollywood and the recording industry bring in every year compared to the computer industry/software companies? Hollywood and the record companies seem to be the ones pushing for severe restrictions curtailing our computing equipment.. is it a case of David pushing Goliath around?
Does it include his arch-nemesis, Nastyman?
Anyone else think the Lucky Wander Boy looks a little like Buddy Lee?
"So why haven't the arcade games so formative to geek youth (okay, geek 30somethings, young in the glory days of arcade play) gotten their due from the rest of popular culture?"
Let's see...there have been pop songs about arcade games, movies based on arcade games, movies about people playing arcade games, movies about people arcade video games, television cartoons based on arcade games, and almost every household you see on tv in US of A has at least one video game system.
Yes, there is no Hollywood 'walk of fame' star for gaming, but what kind of 'due' do you expect?
I think the important question is, why does every video game on tv sound like Pac Man for the 2600?
Anyone that makes it to the third level gets a visit from Robert Preston.
Disco might not be the same as it was in the 70's, but disco music has consistently proven to be a money spinner.
Many of the latest cuts from the top DJs are remixes of older tracks, and in the late 90's there was a definite 'disco vibe' to a lot of the commercial club output.
Recent club music seems to be having a bit of an 80's resurgence (as does European pop music in general - for proof, listen to 'Freak Like Me' by the Sugababes).
Disco culture, however, has proven popular since the 70's. If you're in the US, just take a look at some of those candy ravers and you'll see what I mean.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Arcades were /always/ full of freaks, they're just no longer /your/ freaks.
Dramatic Interlude
It seems that video games occupy a certain space of popular culture and that it is only slowly expanding beyond that. The geek influences are still in place even though they're mass market items. When I am interested in a new video game or a new system, I don't check the mainstream news outlets, I go to a video game website or read a video game magazine. Comparing this to when I want to read a review of a new movie - just open the newspaper or just watch the trailer on TV and judge it from that. Video games have clearly broken out of the niche of being a toy for kids BUT the marketing of them seems to be stuck in a limited circle. Of course, maybe this is a good thing - perhaps it's the fact that people are interested enough in video games to seek out information about them, without huge marketing budgets pushing them down our throats, that shows just why the video game industry pulls in so much more money.
Oh also, the Mario Brothers movie was crap. I think that stunning pile of dog feces shows that a lot of people outside of the video game industry just don't get it - they don't have the ability to translate because their heads are stuck in Hollywood mode. All they did for that wretched mistake was take the basic characters from the game (two Italians, one wearing red, the other wearing green) and throw them into a run of the mill crap movie. There was no real use of the dynamics of the games. Video games are different. :D
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
...at my boxing class. I won't ruin the "mystique" except to say he's a really nice, smart guy with a genuine love for video games.
I read the book too, and I agree very much with the review. The excerpts from the "Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainments" were my favorite part - some very canny insights into old-school arcade games. I particularly liked in one section where on of the character starts critiquing the catalogue in a manner that completely echoed what I was thinking...
Go read the book, it's cool!
grib.
maybe
"I still prefer battling it out with another live human in a game of Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2"
Me too, however I get the same thrill matching wits and reflexes while playing Quake/UT/etc. online. It's nice to play for free and I don't have to leave the house.
The other nice thing is no one complains that I am stark naked.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Behold! I give you CmdrTaco!
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
Yep, I grew up playing pinball, skee-ball, etc... in old-fashioned arcades and bowling alleys. Did anyone else ever draw a correllation between the makers (Bally, Midway, etc...) of these games and makers of the video games that followed (Same ones, etc...). Aren't these names (Bally, Midway, etc...) tied-in to the casino industry? Does anyone know if video game companies received venture capital (or other funding, investment) from the gambling industry (aka - The Mafia). It seems it would be more profitable and draw less attention from the law to make money from video games (which only provide the illusion of winning something tangible) than operating brick-and-mortar gambling establishments. One may think this is an offtopic rant, but does a plan exist to have the youth of the world addicted (and I use the term very loosely) to gaming/gambling from an early age? Haven't we already seen evidence of this through video_game_themed Slot/Video_Poker machines in casinos for some time now?
Even the coolest video games only cost a quarter! Now anything more advanced then a 1994 version of Street Fighter costs at least 50 cents, and I've seen some that take a doller to two dollers just so you can lose after one try.
That's the reason I was turned off from arcades, dagnabbit.
OT: I think the best baseball game ever made was SNK "Baseball Stars" for the NES. I've yet to seen one be as fun as that.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
God. I have a wife. I have a copy fo MAME. I'm a hard core nerd, my day job is coding z80 ASM for ATM's, my hobby at night is making video games. Yet, I've dated a lot, had a lot of girlfriends, and don't understand this geek steroetype BECAUSE NO ONE I HAVE MET HAS EVER BEEN ONE. And I know alot of nerds.
God. You know what's unbeleivable? Somebody so stupid they actually would place their suspension of disbleif in something so bad as a stereotype. 1. It's fiction. So suspend away NONE OF IT IS REAL. 2. That would be like saying "God, this cop-buddy comedy with a black man in it isn't racist enough in it's portrayal of a subculture.".
click me
I'm sorry, but every time I see this title I think "Happy Fun Ball" for some reason.
Do NOT taunt happy fun ball...
.Information doesn't want to be anything
Since this book is about geeks and games, I think its kinda appropriate that Amazon's "Customers who shopped for this item also shopped for" list contains: The Definitive Book of Pick-Up Lines. :)
I think that this perception is what the article summary was talking about. Video games are a part of pop culture but people think they play a much smaller role than they do.
Interesting analogy with the butler there; very true. No one wants to solder anymore! - those wimps
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
If you played in the days when primitive graphics and freshly-minuted archetypes made gameplay somehow even more addictive, this book will cause howls of recognition.
I feel priveleged to have been born in '68, because I got to experience arcades at the height of their glory. Best arcade I ever went to: Spaceway Raceway in Springfield Mall. Actually, there were *two* arcades in Springfield mall during the 80s--IIRC, they were both called "Timeout" at one point. The Spaceway Raceway was the one that was remodeled to include a circular electric bumper-car track.
The important thing is that the arcades were DARK. This cannot be stressed too much. Also, games were new, we were young, and this was "cutting edge technology that nobodoy knew where it would take us". It was soooo... easy to get "lost" in this fantasy world... perhaps too easy. I honestly believe I was addicted to games at one point.
Timeout is still there, but SWRW was turned into something else... not sure what. The beginning of the end came for me when games started getting "cartoony" and I learned to drive. Then they started turning on lights in Time Out. They started turning on lights in all the arcades, reason given was that drug deals and pick-pocketing were going down. Lousy people always have to spoil it... but perhaps this was part of the "Star Wars Cantina" low-grade danger that made the places so appealing... that, and the fact that I had to ride my bike pretty far to get there.
It all fell apart when I went to college. Even before that, they were losing their luster. And, when you can drive a car, there are much more interesting places to go...
Of course kids these days have better tech, but I can't help but think they are deprived. There tech is too good. No epic bike rides for gaming... they sit on their butts too long... the effect of the tech and the direction it will take seems more predictable.
Games now? I fire up Quake once in a while when I'm frustrated with something, but that's it. The addiction left, as mysteriously as it came.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Here's what the September 2002 issue of Business 2.0 magazine had to say about this myth.
Videogames Vs. Hollywood
You've probably heard that the videogame business is now bigger than the movie industry. Don't believe the hype. The reality: Videogame sales last year still trailed Hollywood box-office receipts (not to mention books and music). Throw in revenues from VHS and DVD sales and rentals, and game software becomes a distant also-ran.
Share of the entertainment dollar, 2001 (TOTAL: $59 Billion)
Video (VHS and DVD): 28%
Books: 28%
Movies (box office): 14%
Music: 19%
Videogames: 11%
Yes, that does make sense.
You see, right now, classic gaming and arcade culture haven't been recognized by any segment of popular culture. However, a large percentage of young adults (and, indeed, older adults) today played video games as a child (or still do). Hence, writing an accessible book that recognizes this experience will automatically become a part of "popular" culture, since a large portion of the population will be interested in the book's subject matter.
QED, baby. Take a philosophy course sometime, it really can change the way you perceive the world.
...I think you meant to say non-fucking geek steroetypes.
Either that or you're thinking of a different one than I am.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Yeah, lord knows when I see someone posting insulting flamebait on Slashdot, the first thing I think is "now there's a guy that's secure in his self-image!"
Good one, kid.
Yet, I've dated a lot, had a lot of girlfriends, and don't understand this geek steroetype BECAUSE NO ONE I HAVE MET HAS EVER BEEN ONE.
My God man, no wonder you've never met any stereotypical geeks! There're not going to be at places you MEET people! True geeks avoid social meeting places and if you approach them at work they just mumble something about staplers until you go away and leave them to their coding.
Want to find some REAL geeks? You need to stay IN more - go on IRC, start a blog. The geeks will come.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Ok, *now* I understand.
Yes. I agree. Pop culture has long since taken video games to heart, but the powers that be in Hollywood and the other centers of Big Media still don't get it.
Now, personally, I think that it's a generational thing. Oddly enough, given their core customers, media companies famously are run by guys (pretty much all guys) who are positively decrepit. And like Wall Street, the culture is so strong and pervasive that even if somebody isn't from that world, they ape its morés and behaviors to fit in.
Unitl the people running the studios and managing the papers/televison stations are of the generation that grew up with video games, and even for five or six years after that during the transitions in priorities and procedures, this will keep happening. If you look at magazine publishing, from GQ to TimeOut, they review video games just as they do movies, and have for years. So do pretty much all men's magazines (especially the "lad"-oriented ones), most of the hipper style magazines (Vice, not Vogue), as well as most nightlife guides.
Of course the weakness in this argument is that there is no reason that iD can't just write a check to ABC and have ads all over the screen by Monday morning. Why don't they? Dunno.
Me? I don't have a TV, stopped playing video games in the late eighties, and only keep an eye on this stuff as a media guy tracking buying and production.
When it comers to editorial policies, well, if you don't like the coverage, start your own news company.;-) But as for ads, bitch at iD or Blizzard, or Bungie, ILM, or these days the ever-newly-evil Micro$oft. They choose the ad pages. Until *they* decide to shift their media buys ain't nothin' doin.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.