LemmiSchmoeker reviewed Gaming Hacks by Simon Carless
A knowledgeable and sometimes entertaining look at a technological world that has largely disappeared
3 stars
I bought this book when it was fairly new, about 20 years ago, because I was interested in its adventure "hacks". After skimming through those articles, and making a mental note to read them more thoroughly later on, I put the book on a shelf and never looked inside again.
Now I have finally read it, and it was a really strange experience. Almost everything the book talks about – software, devices, websites – is firmly rooted in the world of 2004. For instance the Game Boy Advance and Windows XP came out in 2001, the Dreamcast in 1999, and the Palm Pilot in 1997, so those are interesting subjects for gaming hacks of the current time. Half-Life 2 (which came out in 2004) is mentioned multiple times as the next hot thing to be published soon. Speedrunning was still in its infancy, 3D modelling was only possible in gaming …
I bought this book when it was fairly new, about 20 years ago, because I was interested in its adventure "hacks". After skimming through those articles, and making a mental note to read them more thoroughly later on, I put the book on a shelf and never looked inside again.
Now I have finally read it, and it was a really strange experience. Almost everything the book talks about – software, devices, websites – is firmly rooted in the world of 2004. For instance the Game Boy Advance and Windows XP came out in 2001, the Dreamcast in 1999, and the Palm Pilot in 1997, so those are interesting subjects for gaming hacks of the current time. Half-Life 2 (which came out in 2004) is mentioned multiple times as the next hot thing to be published soon. Speedrunning was still in its infancy, 3D modelling was only possible in gaming engines for most people, Machinima was a viable way to make cheap movies – because who could afford a camera or an editing environment? The websites that are given for reference are almost all gone now, with very few exceptions.
What remains is a knowledgeable and sometimes entertaining look at a technological world that has largely disappeared in the intervening years, which is very interesting for a computer and gaming historian such as me, but mostly worthless for everybody else.