Reviews and Comments

Know this going in: All Your Base Are Belong To Us resembles a collection of passionately written, diligently researched, loosely tied together essays, rather than being a true exploration of the video game industry's impact on pop culture. It's alluded to repeatedly, but not explored as deeply as I expected.

And Goldberg's occasional reconstruction of the historical dialogue that transpired (based on his 200+ interviews) sounds stilted, not natural.

Still, it's packed with fascinating facts concerning the origin stories of the pioneers and creatives who paved the way. As someone who's been loving video games since Pong, and covered the industry for more than a decade, Goldberg still managed to unearth a ton of tidbits that surprised me.

Beyond that, I have a new appreciation for the early days of PopCap, Rockstar, and Sierra among many others.

It's an easy-reading page-turner for true video game enthusiasts. Come for the origin stories, the history lessons, and the insights gained from Goldberg's treasure chest of interviews (I'd love to see the unedited transcripts of these), just don't expect a deep analysis of gaming's conquest of pop culture.

GREAT COMPANION BOOK: Console Wars by Blake Harris.

Most characters in a story have a redemption arc. Tragically, that can't be said for Noel Monk's account of Roth-era Van Halen.

What starts as a beautiful origin story about a super-talented band briefly evolves into a success story, but then just as quickly devolves into a sordid narrative of betrayal, frustration, depression, and severe drug and alcohol abuse that makes you simultaneously feel sadness and contempt for the members of the band.

Except for Michael. No one could ever hate Michael.

Seriously though, this painted my impressions of Van Halen a slightly darker color, and like Monk towards the end of his tale, I feel like removing them from heavy rotation on my Spotify playlists. At least for a little while.

Maybe some Van Hagar as a palate cleanser...

At any rate, it's an easily readable page-turner and contains a wealth of "inside baseball" stories (some that are delightful, more that are downright revolting) proving the rock star touring life isn't as glorious as you think. Neither are the rock stars themselves.