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Push > Start Is A Greatest Hits Album With Some Weird Hits

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Video game coffee table books are a thing, because even gamers have coffee tables and sometimes like to appear like civilized people to guests. Okay so coffee table books are a pretty bougey thing to own in the first place, so I probably shouldn't have been surprised that earBooks' Push>Start was mostly going to cater to the art of retro classics.

"Push Start outlines the graphical evolution from its beginnings, through the golden age of arcade video games, to the latest generation of game consoles. Fascinating artwork and screenshot prints of the most famous video games and the corresponding cult sounds on a 10-inch vinyl create an expanding universe of game culture in which the worlds of emotion, reality and art collide." Or at least that's what the description for the book says.

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And there is some awesome game art here – some of it is absolutely incredible – but some of the images collected don't do their games justice. And some just seem like, well, why bother including it? Did we really need a shot of Custers Revenge? No. No one needs pixelized rapist entertainment sitting on their coffee table, so, this seems like it was included just so you could point to it and go, "hey look at this weird game that totally existed!"

Some of the games included here make sense. Space Invaders, Pac ManSuper MarioZelda, and Metal Gear Solid are all games that pretty much need to be included in any discussion of gaming as an overall trend. They're cultural touchstones. And while Push > Start includes a ton of retro titles that are a bit off the beaten path, most of them are pretty big names. And the only real art game included in the 215 titles included in the collection was Limbo.

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In fact, Journey and Limbo are pretty much the only modern indie titles in the collection. Granted, only a quarter of the book focuses on games from the N64 era onward. Yeah, once we hit 3D gaming, Push > Start kind of gave up.

It doesn't help that not every game gets a nice dual-page spread either. The combinations also don't seem to have much rhyme or reason other than release date. Fallout 3 gets included next to Mirror's Edge, and both Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time share a page layout that just looks horrible.

Sure, I totally have some favorite visuals from here, but, it just isn't worth the price tag for a handful of awesome visuals.

Physically, the book is put together alright. The spine creaks ominously when you open it and has started separating out from the hardcover on one side. But it's got a solid weight to it, the pages lie decently flat when you open it up, and they feel nice and smooth. The woven pattern on the cover is pretty awesome though.

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When you consider that earBooks are designed to be looked over with a soundtrack, well, some of that AAA-centric mentality makes sense. But, not all of it. There are games with incredible scores that never made it here, and the songs included on the the companion record are, well, not exactly the ones you'd guess. At least it comes with a digital download for those of us who don't own a record player. The album only has a handful of songs:

  • Castlevania – "Vampire Killer"
  • Super Mario Bros – "Main Theme"
  • Mega Man II – "Dr. Wiley's Theme"
  • Street Fighter – "Guile's Theme"
  • Space Harrier – "Main Theme"
  • Puzzle Bobble – "Let's Go To Pao Pao Island!"
  • Tetris – "Korobeiniki"

Really, if you wanted a collection of the best video game themes, those exist in better formats than this. And really, it's an alright coffee table book if you just want to say, "yeah, games are kind of cool" to whoever walks in your door. But that's about all there is here.

There's a bit of copy on some of the pages, but it reads like the sort of vapid pseudo-intellectual prose you'd expect of, well, the kind of person who brings an acoustic guitar to a party so he can sit there playing "Wonderwall" all night.

So if you want to decorate your coffee table with books that prove just how into games you are, there are better options out there. But if you just want one that gets all the greatest hits, this isn't a bad option. Just, watch out for that weak spine.


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Madeline RicchiutoAbout Madeline Ricchiuto

Madeline Ricchiuto is a gamer, comics enthusiast, bad horror movie connoisseur, writer and generally sarcastic human. She also really likes cats and is now Head Games Writer at Bleeding Cool.
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