The idea of compiling a "1001" book for gaming has been in my head since I first picked up "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" back when the first edition came out. I had often hoped to one day make an effort to compile my own version of this list or that someone else would. Lo and behold, here we are in 2011 and I somehow missed the fact that this had ever been published. At first I was indignant that someone had gotten to it before I did, but then I immediately ordered my own copy to see how well it fit with my vision of what it could be and was excited to read through it.
On the one hand, this book does a good job of including many hidden gems that several players are likely to have never heard of. It also does a good job of not being limited to either strictly consoles or PC, but compiles its list from a wide variety of places. There are many well-written reviews by industry professionals that expound upon why a particular game is or was highly influential, and despite the small amount of space available to each entry they generally manage to give the reader a good idea of the content without spoiling anything. There are many varied genres present, so very few can claim to have been marginalized. There are just as many Japanese RPGs as there are Western, as many FPS' as there are RTS'.
I have to add, however, that I find it frustrating that many (if not most) of the reviewers either are working, or have previously worked, with Edge magazine. For claiming to be written by international critics, it seems markedly one-sided; with not a single Japanese, Chinese, or Korean reviewer in sight. The only marginal exception being Jason Brookes, who works as an international correspondent for Weekly Famitsu in Japan. Of course, he has also worked for Edge in the past; so there's that to consider as well.
There are also some chronological and technical issues that I find unacceptable and feel a need to make note of. The first of these is that the dates of release are very unspecific; giving only a year of release as apposed to the actual date. This problem is compounded further when you realize that for some games, they actually use the date for a re-release (such as in the case of Dragon Quest V which is placed in the 2000's section of the book), which doesn't give you a clear picture of the actual time-line.
For a book like this to present a truly accurate history, the dates should be clear and organized based on the original region of release. If a game was released in Japan first, then that release date should be represented and not the later American or European release date. The "1001 Movies" book handled this very well, so I was highly disappointed to see it handled so haphazardly here.
The other thing that bothered me was that some information presented in the reviews was flat-out wrong. The review of Final Fantasy V states that "among the game's innovations was the introduction of the Active Time Battle System", which any fan of the series can tell you is incorrect; as that particular innovation came out of Final Fantasy IV (which is, like Dragon Quest V, relegated to the post 2000 section of the book as a remake). There is also a review of Wario World for the Gamecube that states that this is "The first title in which he takes the lead"; which is again, completely false.
Some people will point out that the book seems very biased towards newer titles, and that's another fair criticism. I'm not a big fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, and I really can't understand the need for there to be so many titles from the series in this book; just as much as I can't understand the need for so many Mario titles to be in this book. I do understand the need for some of them to be in there, but all of them?
Overall, I feel like much of what's here is just here to pad out the book; and while that's really unfortunate, I can't say that it was entirely unexpected. In my own thoughts about making a similar book, I had trouble getting up to even 400 titles; let alone 1001. At any rate, at least they made room for plenty of really worthwhile titles and some true classics throughout.
All of these aforementioned problems come with a few typos here and there, but I didn't notice anything else too glaring in my six or seven hours with the book thus far. It's still a decent reference, and you could certainly do much worse when looking for a book like this; however I can't really fully recommend it unless you are really into this kind of publication, or until a new edition addresses some of these issues.
-Shawn M. Cox
October 8th, 2011
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