“BOOM SHAKALAKA!
Great time.
Okay, the first 10% of the book, I was worried. I was reading the same video game origin stories that those of us who travel in the world of video game books have read dozens of times. The milk jug filled with quarters! Damn that jug!
Sometimes, with video game books, it’s a little like Spider-Man movies. We don’t need to go ALL THE WAY BACK.
But, NBA JAM pretty quickly gets on track, and it’s a fun read from there.
The book is well-researched, but it works as a narrative. You don’t feel that thing you get with some books, that feeling of “Okay, we get it. You did a shitload of research. I don’t need to hear everything you learned.” There was a great balance.
You can tell Ali is a fan of not only the games, but the people who made them. And they truly are an interesting crew, especially Tim Kitzrow, the voice of NBA Jam. This dude is unbelievable. He made Marv Albert look like a lazy sack of sacks.
Kitzrow has a web site where you can throw him a few bucks and he’ll record messages, outgoing voicemal, and so on. I’m SO tempted, although I can’t decide what I’d ask him to say.
Nice work, Mr. Ali and Boss Fight Books. “