This is truly a fantastic book, and an amazing value for the treasures it contains.
After making a recent pilgrimage to the American Classic Arcade Museum, I’ve had a renewed interest in arcade and vintage console machines. People forget just how ground-breaking and influential Atari’s game and industrial design was over a generation of kids. This was a company unrestrained by finance, precedent, or expectations. At Atari, everything was on the table, and the misfires are as intriguing as the successes.
In an era where most homes didn’t have or hadn’t even heard of a “personal computer,” where Neuromancer and The Matrix were years or decades away, computers and video games had a magical lure about them. These were The Mysteries of the 21st century. This was the time of Tron, pre-internet, pre-Pixar, pre-cell phone, pre-Warcraft, when new digital technology was materializing almost faster than we could figure out what it meant or how to use it.
Atari games (and their contemporaries) were a social and imagination-firing activity – the world of the game was only partly on the screen. The genius of the appeal was how these games kept firing your imagination long after you unplugged and were engaged in a completely different activity. The skill of Atari’s art and design personnel made this magic happen.
Art of Atari captures these memories perfectly, treating them respect, framing them, curating them. This book is a trove of information from the era, containing not just well-known stuff like the E.T. debacle (debunked, by the way in these pages), but going into interesting trivia even 80’s junkies like me only have a passing knowledge of.
Graphic art? Fine Art? Industrial design? Even fonts (yes – the freakin’ box fonts!) are all represented here, in spades. This book is a boon of pre-Illustrator, pre-Photoshop, old-school analog art and methods. It’s invaluable as a time capsule, educational resource, and nostalgia device.
My only quibble – if it can be called one – is the underrepresentation of Atari’s vast number of arcade machines. By covering all things Atari, this book admirably covers a breadth of detail, but it does so by sacrificing scrutiny of Atari’s design and social influence outside the home. Perhaps for another book..? A similar treatment of the “arcade era” is long overdue.
But all in all – Well worth the wait. The reign of Atari is long past, but I hope this renews an interest in the art itself – many of these iconic cover pieces (Asteroids, Vanguard, Star Raiders, Missile Command, I could go on and on) deserve reproduction release.
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此商品在美国亚马逊上最有用的商品评论
美国亚马逊：
186 条评论
Eric E
This is truly a fantastic book, and an amazing value for the treasures ...
2016年11月11日 -
已在美国亚马逊上发表已确认购买
Metzhara
A Showcase in the Forgotten Stars of the Atari Era... and They Shine Brightly
2016年11月26日 -
已在美国亚马逊上发表已确认购买
Alex N.
Must Have
2016年11月1日 -
已在美国亚马逊上发表已确认购买
Willie
Has Potential but Needs More Art
2021年9月26日 -
已在美国亚马逊上发表已确认购买
Sam Callie
This book has lots of good info
2022年1月4日 -
已在美国亚马逊上发表已确认购买
